The Unemployment benefits ended on the 6th of September and millions of workers find themselves in a tough spot, without any income.
When we look back a year, the US was confronting the second wave of the virus while 30million people were claiming benefits. The Department of Labor had made an announcement that the level has dropped to 12.1million.
The Programs That Sent Unemployment Benefits To The Masses
Congress chose to pass the CARES act and made changes to unemployment insurance. 2 main programs were constructed where the fed extended the weeks for the unemployed people, to claim their unemployment benefits. They increased the value of the benefits too.
The 2 new programs were Pandemic Unemployment Assistance that provided unemployment benefits to the self-employed or non-regular compensators, and the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, which sent unemployment compensation to the eligible people and provided a $300 topper from the feds along with the state unemployment benefits.
The jobs report in August showed 235,000 jobs being added and was only one-third of what was forecasted. It is only a small fraction of the 900k jobs added in June and July.
5.4 million people had claimed PUA benefits about 2 weeks ago. This is higher by 200k from the one calculated in July. The figure is lower than the period when the program was started, which was around 14.95 million.
Around a 9.2million people have lost their unemployment benefits based on the established data and can have serious effects on the economic recovery.
Congress should extend the benefits as there can be further economic contractions if another outbreak is observed.
The US Congress is allowing the unemployment benefits to expire and is not interested to extend them any further.
Biden has stated that the states should use the funds from the ARP to send benefits to the people if they find it necessary.
