This Additional $ 600 Unemployment Benefit Is Renewable

As US plans to resume jobs after the pandemic in many states increasingly look like bad relations, many workers fear losing their unemployment benefits.

In March, the CARES Act approved a federal expansion of state-funded unemployment benefits, giving people who are seeking unemployment benefits access to an additional $ 600 per week.

But this additional payment will expire on July 31st. If you are getting unemployment benefits and are not overly optimistic about getting back to work by the end of the month, you may be worried about how you will pay your bills in August. 1 and higher.

But the Senate proposal could ultimately lead to an extension of that payment of $ 600 per week. The bill, dubbed the “American Labor Save Act,” will continue to provide fringe benefits until the state’s unemployment rate falls below 6%.

Once the state’s unemployment rate falls below 11% (based on a three-month average), the $ 600 benefit will begin to phase out and the weekly benefit will decline $ 100 for every percentage point unemployment rate drop until it falls below 6%. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer explained on his blog about the proposal.

For example, if the state’s unemployment rate is between 9% and 10%, the weekly benefit would be $ 400. Once it hits the 6-7% range, that weekly benefit drops to $ 100 per week on top of the government benefit, according to a summary of the bill first cited by Forbes .

According to data released today , the country’s unemployment rate stood at 14.5% in April, but fell to 11.1% in June. Before the start of the pandemic, the economy had a unemployment rate of just 3.5%.

About half of the states are already below the 11% threshold, but in many states, residents are likely to receive this additional unemployment benefit for some time. The unemployment rate in Illinois and New Jersey is 15.2%, according to May data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics , while the unemployment rate in Nevada is a whopping 25.3%.

The bill had to pass in the Senate and House of Representatives before it is finally signed into law by President Trump. And if the passage of the CARES bill is any indication, it could be weeks before Democrats and Republicans agree on a course of action, if any further action is actually taken.

Meanwhile, some states are taking steps to extend their own unemployment benefits. New Jersey , for example, added 20 weeks to its typical 26-week unemployment benefit period. He can do this because his unemployment rate has risen enough in the past three months that he has reached the federal target for extending benefits. The added value is divided between the state and the federal government.

This post was updated to correct Chuck Sumer’s role in the Senate.

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