The White House and Senate Republicans have conceded that their plan to replace the $600/week unemployment insurance (UI) boost with 70% of previous wages is unworkable for the states. So they've come up with a new plan that is unacceptable to Democrats.
They want to reduce the $600/week to $200/week until states can reengineer their systems to figure out and pay out their original 70% of wages plan. They still aren't recognizing that everyone does make a salary to make that calculation easily, and that wage-workers often don't have a standard base rate of pay to base the calculation on. They're also cutting the lifeline for millions of people by 66%. They're even talking about means testing that, so some higher earners wouldn't even get the 70% bump. This trial balloon was immediately rejected by Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden. The Oregonian authored the $600/week plan and has been leading on UI issues for Democrats. "The White House is once again showing that it has zero understanding of the desperation of unemployed Americans," he tweeted. "My message to Republicans is this: if you think $200 a week is enough to live on, you try it first."
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The average weekly UI benefit nationally pre-coronavirus was $371.88. That's the average, some states pay much less in weekly benefits, some will pay as little $15/week minimum. Like Nevada, which paid a minimum of $16/week and a maximum of $450/week. Puerto Rico's maximum payment is $133/week, Mississippi's is $235. Maximum. Florida's $275. Maximum. Even at the national average, that's $1,487.52 a month for the unemployed. That's not even going to cover rent in huge swaths of the nation. The extra $2,400/month Americans have been receiving have not only kept people whole, it’s kept the economy whole, which you would think would be enough to satisfy Republicans. But some “undeserving” person out there isn’t willing to risk their life to get a minimum wage paycheck, and that’s more than Republicans can stand.
None of this will fly with Democrats, but Trump and McConnell are continuing to squabble with fellow Republicans in hopes of finding something they’ll support, as if they can pass an all-Republican bill that would fly in the House. That’s not going to work. “We have unemployment running out, we have renter protection running out, we have state and local governments going into a new month and won’t have the money and will lay off thousands and thousands of people,” Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer said Monday on MSNBC. “We’re at all these cliffs and we still at this very moment don’t have a plan from the Republicans. We want to sit down and negotiate. But you can’t negotiate with a ghost.”
What the White House and Senate Republicans are doing is giving the finger—again—to working America. Because they think $616 a week for someone who lost their job because of a global pandemic, out of absolutely no fault of their own, is too generous. Sure, give a
$548 billion tax break to billionaires this year, but nickel and dime working America.