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Unemployed people claiming federal benefits won’t see a one-week gap in their payments, despite the delay in President Donald Trump signing the program extension into law, according to the Department of Labor, Bloomberg News reported. States are implementing the provisions as quickly as possible, and the Labor Department doesn’t anticipate that claimants will miss a week of benefits due to the timing of the new law’s enactment, a spokesman for the Department said in a statement yesterday. Trump signed a bipartisan stimulus and government funding bill, which included an 11-week extension of unemployment benefits, into law on Sunday, a day after benefits expired. That prompted concern that jobless Americans would lose out on benefits for the last week of December. Trump held off signing the bill for several days as he demanded bigger stimulus payments for individuals and action on two unrelated issues involving election security and removing a liability shield for technology companies. The pandemic relief law provides a $300-a-week payment for jobless individuals and extends benefits for self-employed and gig workers through mid-March. The $300 federal payments are on top of benefits that state unemployment offices provide. The state benefits vary by income and jurisdiction, but the average state payment was $378 a week, according to Labor Department data.

The House yesterday voted to beef up stimulus checks set to go out to American households in the coming weeks from $600 to $2,000, the Washington Post reported. The chamber acted swiftly after President Trump demanded the larger payments last week, but passage of the measure is uncertain because Senate Republicans have not unified behind the idea. On Sunday, Trump signed into law a $900 billion emergency relief package that included $600 checks. His advisers had advocated for those payments, but Trump later called the check size “measly” and demanded it be increased. After he signed the law, he pledged to continue pushing for the larger payments, something many Democrats also support. Forty-four Republicans joined the vast majority of Democrats on Monday in approving the bill on a 275-to-134 vote — narrowly clearing the two-thirds threshold it needed to pass. The measure’s fate is much less certain in the Senate, which is controlled by Republicans. Approving stimulus checks of $2,000 would cost $464 billion, the Joint Committee on Taxation said Monday. That would be in addition to the $900 billion package Trump signed into law Sunday. Congressional Republicans had sought to keep the total price tag under $1 trillion, but that was before Trump began a fierce effort in the past week to make the stimulus payments larger. One reason for the growing support is the weakening economy, coupled with the spreading pandemic, which has led to more people seeking unemployment benefits and turning to food banks for help. Read more. 

In related news, the Trump administration is scrambling to send one-time stimulus payments to millions of Americans starting as soon as this week, as the U.S. government races to implement a $900 billion coronavirus aid package that President Trump signed after days of delay, the Washington Post reported. The schedule corresponds with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s earlier promise to dispatch stimulus checks to families this week — a plan later thrown into turmoil after Trump initially refused to sign the stimulus package. Trump had attempted to secure last-minute changes to the bill after it passed the House and Senate, but his own party did not support some of his demands, and he relented on Sunday. The Treasury Department is able to move more swiftly than usual to deposit checks for as much as $600 into Americans’ bank accounts as a result of its earlier work this spring, when it disbursed larger sums under an earlier stimulus program. Americans who previously obtained their federal tax refunds through direct deposit were among the first to receive their payments at the time. Those receiving paper checks had a longer wait for the aid. Read more. 

Congress last night overwhelmingly approved a $900 billion stimulus package that would send billions of dollars to American households and businesses grappling with the economic and health toll of the pandemic, the New York Times reported. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that hundreds of dollars in direct payments could begin reaching individual Americans as early as next week. The long-sought relief package was part of a $2.3 trillion catchall package that included $1.4 trillion to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30. It included the extension of routine tax provisions, a tax deduction for corporate meals, the establishment of two Smithsonian museums, a ban on surprise medical bills and a restoration of Pell grants for incarcerated students, among hundreds of other measures. Though the $900 billion stimulus package is half the size of the $2.2 trillion stimulus law passed in March that provided the core of its legislative provisions, it remains one of the largest relief packages in modern American history. It will revive a supplemental unemployment benefit for millions of unemployed Americans at $300 a week for 11 weeks and provide for another round of $600 direct payments to adults and children. The legislative text is likely to be one of the longest ever, and it became available only a few hours before both chambers approved the bill. In the Senate, the bill passed 92 to 6, with Senators Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, Ted Cruz of Texas, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Mike Lee of Utah, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Rick Scott of Florida, all Republicans, voting no. It will now go to President Trump for his signature. But with as many as 12 million Americans set to lose access to expanded and extended unemployment benefits days after Christmas, passage was not in doubt. A number of other pandemic relief provisions are set to expire at the end of the year, and lawmakers in both chambers agreed that the approval of the $900 billion relief package was shamefully overdue.

A wave of attempted fraud is hitting state unemployment benefits programs after they struggled to process record-high claims from layoffs during the economic turbulence triggered by the coronavirus pandemic, the Wall Street Journal reported. States across the country — including California, Louisiana, Illinois, Maryland and others — have collectively received millions of unemployment insurance requests that officials believe to be tied to fraud, with losses likely in the billions of dollars. More than $500 billion in regular and pandemic-related unemployment aid has been distributed so far in the pandemic, according to U.S. Treasury Department data. And more is coming, including a new round of enhanced benefits worth $300 a week included in a pandemic stimulus package passed by Congress. The nation’s unemployment insurance systems are run through a patchwork of state-run programs where fraud has “dramatically increased during the pandemic,” a U.S. Labor Department spokeswoman said. The department, which administers federal components of aid programs in addition to compiling data on state benefits, said thieves have targeted temporary pandemic-related programs extending unemployment aid to millions of workers. To better understand the scope of fraud, it is working with states to track denials where identities couldn’t be verified, the agency spokeswoman said.

Biweekly survey data from the Census Bureau shows that 85.4 million American adults, or 35.6 percent, report trouble paying for typical household bills such as food, medicine and rent, The Hill reported. That figure, which covers the period of Nov. 25 through Dec. 7, is up significantly since early September, when it hovered at 76.5 million, or 31.9 percent. The survey shows steady increases in other areas of concern in recent weeks as well. The number of people without enough to eat rose from 22.4 million, or 10.3 percent, to 27.4 million, or 12.7 percent. The number of adults who aren't sure they can make their rent or mortgage payments rose from 9.9 million, or 7 percent, in early October, to 12.9 million, or 9.1 percent, in December. Expectations of job loss spiked as well, with 76.7 million, or 31 percent, saying they expect that they or someone in their household will lose employment in the coming month. That figure is up from 58.3 million, or 28.3 percent, two months earlier.