Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh said Thursday that the Biden administration will not seek an extension of pandemic jobless aid programs but encouraged states to use funding from the $1.9 trillion stimulus package to support unemployed workers, The Hill reported. In a letter yesterday to congressional leaders, Yellen and Walsh said it is “appropriate” for a $300 weekly boost to unemployment insurance and other expanded benefits programs to expire as scheduled on Sept. 6. “The temporary $300 boost in benefits will expire on September 6th, as planned. As President Biden has said, the boost was always intended to be temporary and it is appropriate for that benefit boost to expire,” Yellen and Walsh wrote to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.). “In addition, President Biden believes that the conditions exist in many states such that the other emergency UI [unemployment insurance] programs ... can end on the date set in the American Rescue Plan,” they continued, referring to the $1.9 trillion stimulus bill Biden signed in March. The March stimulus bill extended the $300 weekly supplement, the Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program for gig workers and contractors and Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation — which provides up to 53 weeks of additional aid — through Labor Day.
