Member-only story
Incomes are about to fall through the floor
A pillar of the US government’s Covid response will expire in days
There have been plenty of fumbles when it comes to the US government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. But the most important thing it did was protect workers by expanding unemployment insurance as part of the CARES Act.
This move, while it has not received the same level of attention as the direct payments made to employers or the trillions of dollars the US Fed has pumped into the financial system, has arguably done the most to alleviate the economic shock for average Americans. By widening the eligibility criteria and boosting payments by a flat $600 per week, these temporary measures have provided at least a modicum of certainty for millions of American workers.
The problem is that these measures were implemented as two separate packages: Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA), which made unemployment insurance available to workers who would not previously have been eligible, and Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (PUC), which boosted the weekly benefit by $600. The PUA is set to expire after 31 December 2020, but the PUC is scheduled to end after 31 July 2020, meaning workers will no longer receive an additional $600 in weekly income should they be made jobless as a result of the pandemic. These…
