Amid Ongoing Unemployment Crisis and “Alarming Surges” in Coronavirus Cases, Senate Republicans Refusing to Extend Emergency Unemployment Relief

DSCC spokesperson Stewart Boss issued the following statement on the ongoing unemployment crisis and recent reports detailing the impending “fiscal cliff” that American workers are facing:

“As coronavirus cases surge in states across the country and millions of Americans remain out of work or lose their jobs all over again, Mitch McConnell and Senate Republicans have abandoned their responsibilities. Instead of working to improve the response to this public health and economic crisis, Republicans are punting on federal support for state and local governments, vowing to gut enhanced unemployment relief that has become an essential lifeline for hardworking families, and even plowing forward with a dangerous lawsuit that would strike down the entire health care law. It did not have to be this bad and voters won’t forget that GOP senators enabled this disastrous, incompetent response to the coronavirus pandemic.”

Now, as the U.S. leads the world in the number of reported coronavirus cases and deaths and the surging pandemic halts the country’s economic recovery, new reports detail the grim financial reality that many Americans are facing. A Washington Post report spotlights how “millions of American workers are suffering from economic whiplash” as they are laid off for the second time, and a new POLITICO report bluntly exposes the grim reality of the job market and how “the already struggling U.S. economy has begun to show signs of another shock.”

Despite reports of American workers being “on even shakier financial ground as they topple into yet another period without a job” and facing a “fiscal cliff,” Senate Republicans are pledging to oppose extending the enhanced unemployment relief that passed Congress with bipartisan support earlier this year and have repeatedly “dismissed calls for immediate additional legislation.”

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT

Washington Post: Workers are getting laid off for a second time, as the virus’s surge puts reopenings on hold

• Millions of American workers are suffering from economic whiplash, thinking they were finally returning to work only to be sent home again because of the coronavirus’s latest surge.

• Stores, restaurants, gyms and other businesses that reopened weeks ago are shuttering once more, and this time Congress appears less inclined to provide additional aid. Other companies that had banked on customers returning and restrictions lifting — such as hotel chains, construction firms and movie theaters — are seeing hours cut and reopening dates pushed back indefinitely as consumer demand stalls.

• Thousands of workers are caught in these rapidly shifting seas, many of them hourly and low-wage service employees, and are now facing unemployment for a second time. They say the past few months have been jarring: navigating unemployment in March, preparing to go back to work in April or May, and now confronting the prospect of another long stretch without a paycheck.

• This time, many say they’re on even shakier financial ground as they topple into yet another period without a job. They face what experts have begun calling a “fiscal cliff”: the July end date for the $600 in weekly supplemental aid that has helped keep so many families afloat.

POLITICO: ‘It’s all backwards-looking’: June’s positive jobs data obscures a grimmer reality

• With more than 40 percent of the country now reversing or pausing its plans to reopen, the already struggling U.S. economy has begun to show signs of another shock.

• Another 1.43 million Americans applied for jobless benefits last week, the Labor Department reported on Thursday, and 19.3 million remain on unemployment insurance.

• Real-time measurements ranging from job postings to restaurant reservations and small-business operations are also suggesting a renewed decline in economic activity. And the number of households expecting to lose income over the next month increased in the most recent week, according to a U.S. Census Bureau survey released on Wednesday — the first rise recorded since the agency began conducting weekly household surveys two months ago.

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