Tag: U.S. economy

Pelosi, Schumer say White House declined $2T coronavirus deal

The Hill logoDemocratic leaders said Friday that the White House rejected an offer for a roughly $2 trillion coronavirus relief package.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that as part of a closed-door Thursday meeting, Democrats offered to reduce their $3.4 trillion price tag by $1 trillion if Republicans would agree to raise their roughly $1 trillion package by the same amount.

That strategy, effectively trying to split the difference between the two sides, would result in legislation costing between $2 trillion and $2.4 trillion. Continue reading.

Unemployment debate sparks GOP divisions

The Hill logoA looming floor fight over unemployment insurance is putting a spotlight on GOP divisions about how to replace the $600 per week federal benefit.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is set to bring the debate to a head this week, with Republican leaders saying they are eager to hold votes that will make Democrats go on the record as bipartisan talks on a broader coronavirus package remain stalled.

But the floor votes could also highlight differences among the 53 Senate Republicans, who have struggled to agree on what to do about the federal benefit that expired last week. Continue reading.

Republicans struggle to break logjam on coronavirus relief

Democrats seek to extend a $600-per-week federal benefit into 2021, while Republicans want to dramatically scale back the payment.

Senate GOP leaders and the White House have shown no clear plan to break a deadlock with Democrats over a new coronavirus relief package, said Republican senators and Trump administration officials.

A week of closed-door talks between Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on one side and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on the other have yielded little progress. At the same time, a $600-per-week federal unemployment benefit has lapsed, as has a federal eviction moratorium, threatening the financial outlook of millions of Americans.

Faced with this deadlock, President Donald Trump said on Monday he is considering issuing executive orders extending the eviction moratorium or possibly delaying collection of the federal payroll tax, although it’s not clear what authority he has to do so. And when Trump could issue these presidential orders is also unclear. Continue reading.

States could see years of money woes, job losses from the COVID-19 recession

As Congress struggled last week to reach a deal on the latest coronavirus relief package, alarms were again being raised that the lack of federal aid could mean years of service cutbacks, layoffs and employee furloughs for state and local governments across the country.

Georgia, which has avoided mass furloughs, has fared better than many other states. Nationally, about 1.5 million college, school and other government workers were laid off or furloughed during the early months of the COVID-19 recession, eclipsing the declines during the Great Recession, according to U.S. Department of Labor figures.

Without federal assistance to fill holes in state and local budgets, some analysts have said spending cuts and tax increases that communities may need to continue providing services could delay the country’s recovery. Continue reading.

How Trump and the radical Republicans are pushing America’s economy over a cliff

AlterNet logoDonald Trump & Co. have thrown the already rapidly collapsing America off an economic cliff. Over the next few weeks, they will pound the wreckage, even set it afire, unless they get a lucrative new favor for Corporate America.

The Trumpians are actively ruining our economy because, in a perverse way, they share the belief of the Black Lives Matter protesters that the American justice system can’t be trusted. Both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) cruel recalcitrance on coronavirus relief and the Black Lives Matter demands are about accountability in the courts.

I’ll explain that troubling nexus, but first, let’s understand the awful reality that Trump and Radical Republicans in the Senate have created and why it can only make our economic disaster worse. Continue reading.

The Senate just pushed the country off a cliff — and then headed for the hills

AlterNet logoDespite the pandemic-induced recession, millions of jobless Americans have been kept afloat by an uncharacteristically generous act of Congress. In addition to their state’s usual unemployment payments — usually a fraction of their previous wages — Americans have been eligible to receive and additional $600 a week, desperately needed support for people who saw their incomes crater.

But Republicans have been outraged that the payments were so generous, so they objected to legislation the Democrats passed in May to extend the program. They proposed a number of different ideas to extend the program on a more limited basis, but all these ideas came at the last minute and the GOP caucus couldn’t agree on a single plan. So on Friday, the program officially expires — meaning unemployed Americans who had been receiving a boost of $2,400 a month from the government will suddenly see those payments slashed to zero.

And now, the Senate has gone home for a long weekend. Continue reading.

Kicking Folks Out While They’re Down

Center for American Progress logoHow the Premature Lifting of Coronavirus Restrictions Is Increasing Evictions and Worsening the Homelessness Crisis

Introduction and summary

Experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity at any time is a struggle, but during a pandemic, survival is even more fraught. More than 560,000 people experience homelessness on any given night, and at least 1.4 million utilize emergency shelters or transitional housing in the United States each year.1 These high numbers will certainly surge during and after the coronavirus crisis due to job losses that place those already barely keeping a roof over their heads at an even greater risk of eviction and homelessness.

In 2018, 11 million U.S. renters—1 in 4—were severely cost-burdened, meaning that they paid more than 50 percent of their income on housing costs alone.2 These households are most at risk of missing rent payments and, therefore, being evicted. The U.S. housing and homelessness crisis today not only reflects the new devastation wrought by the coronavirus crisis but also the aftermath of more than eight decades of inaction by policymakers—who have yet to create a national strategy to provide affordable and equitable housing—as well as an insufficient, inequitable, and timid Great Recession recovery.3 Permanent stable housing must be provided and connected to wraparound services or a continuum of care that is flexible and tailored to the household’s needs, is cost-effective over time, and provides protections for all people.

Now is not the time to deprioritize pandemic emergency relief. As new COVID-19 cases emerge across states, with some of the highest resurgences being reported in states that were the first to end their emergency or stay-at-home ordinances, responsible plans for reopening safely must include aggressive measures that meet urgent housing, health, and economic needs.4 The United States remains in a state of emergency, and any attempt to frame current aid efforts to address the still crisis-level needs as “stimulus” or even “recovery” ignores the deadly, immediate reality that millions of U.S. households are facing.5 Far too many states and localities are prematurely suspending their emergency ordinances, rolling back housing and debt collection protections, and subsequently resuming foreclosures and evictions merely days after reopening.6 States’ and localities’ premature lifting or relaxing of emergency ordinances and restrictions may lead to actions that will: Continue reading.

Worst Quarterly Downturn Since ’29 Crash Fails To Spur GOP Economic Action

Donald Trump oversaw the worst economic quarter in recorded U.S. history, with the economy shrinking by 33 percent from April through June.

This marks the second quarter in a row Trump has presided over a steep quarterly drop in the nation’s gross domestic product, the Associated Press reported on Thursday, following a five percent drop from January through March.

Since the federal government began recording quarterly GDP in 1947, the previous worst quarter was a ten percent contraction in 1958.

In 2016, Trump campaigned on growing the economy by up to six percent per year, but has repeatedly failed to fulfill that promise. The most the economy has grown was 3.2 percent in 2018 and GDP growth fell below 2.5 percent in both 2017 and 2019. Continue reading.

Unemployment benefits to expire as coronavirus talks deadlock

The Hill logoEnhanced unemployment benefits are set to expire as congressional negotiators are deadlocked over a coronavirus relief deal.

The additional $600 a week in unemployment insurance that Congress provided in late March will sunset on Friday at midnight, dealing a significant financial blow to millions of jobless Americans amid a weakening labor market.

Lawmakers had hoped the deadline, which was known for months, would result in the kind of eleventh-hour agreement that was once commonplace in Washington. But in a sign of how far apart negotiators are, the Senate left town for the week on Thursday, ensuring Congress will careen over the fast-approaching unemployment cliff. Continue reading.

Millions to lose $600 weekly jobless aid amid Senate stalemate

A late night meeting with negotiators yielded little progress.

With federal unemployment benefits expiring on Friday — a serious blow to millions of Americans who lost jobs due to the coronavirus pandemic — the Senate became bogged down in partisan fighting and left town without a resolution to the crisis.

And two more hours of high-level talks on Thursday night between Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on one side and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on the other yielded almost no progress. The talks will continue through the weekend, but a deal seems far off at this point.

“We had a long discussion,” Schumer told reporters after the meeting ended late Thursday night. “And we just don’t think they understand the gravity of the problem. The bottom line is this is the most serious health problem and economic problem we’ve had in a century and 75 years, and it takes really good strong bold action, and they don’t quite get that.” Continue reading.