TIMELINE: How Senate Republicans Let Emergency Unemployment Relief Run Out

Senate Republicans Had Months To Extend Expiring Emergency Unemployment Lifeline — But Instead Of Taking Action, They Played Politics

Senate Republicans let emergency unemployment relief expire this weekend, leaving millions of working families without the lifeline they depend on to put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads as the coronavirus continues to surge across the country. Now, Senate Republicans are playing the blame game after they refused to negotiate all summer, instead watching the clock tick down to July 31 while insisting that the expanded unemployment relief was a “mistake” and that they didn’t see “a big need” to extend the lifeline.

Here is a timeline showing how Senate Republicans wasted months refusing to take action to extend emergency unemployment relief, despite knowing it was expiring at the end of July:

• March 25: The Senate passed the CARES Act, which included the $600 per week boost in federal unemployment insurance that Democrats fought to secure after Republicans’ initial proposal left laid-off and furloughed workers with no relief. The temporary boost was only funded through July 31, 2020.

• April 2: HuffPost published a report revealing that several vulnerable incumbent Senate Republicans were “bragging about” the unemployment boost to their constituents after voting to block it.

• April 29: Senator Lindsey Graham said Congress would extend the emergency unemployment insurance boost past July 31 “over our dead bodies.”

• May 5: Senator McConnell again refused to commit to action on relief – despite the July 31 deadline on expanded unemployment insurance, repeating: “I know many people are asking for additional legislation. I think I can speak for our conference by saying we’re not ruling that out but we think we’re going to take a pause here.”

• May 11: Senator McConnell again dismissed moving on additional coronavirus aid, reiterating “we have not yet felt the urgency of acting immediately.” That week, 36 million Americans filed jobless claims. 

• May 14: As House Democrats prepared to vote on a new relief package that includes an extension of expanded unemployment relief, Senator McConnell again made clear Senate Republicans would not act: “We will let you know when we think the time is right to begin to move again.” 

• May 15: The House passed legislation that extends the $600 per week federal unemployment insurance boost through the end of 2020.

• May 21: Unelected Senator Martha McSally said that extending the federal unemployment insurance relief after July 31 would “disincentivize work.” Senator McConnell again told Fox News that Senate Republicans aren’t “quite ready” to “lay down the next step” on additional aid for Americans. 

• May 22: McConnell and Republicans recessed the Senate for nine days without extending the unemployment relief they knew would expire July 31. The recess came after Senator Cory Gardner caved to McConnell following his empty political stunt saying it would be “unfathomable” for the Senate to go on recess without passing additional coronavirus aid.

• May 27: In the middle of the nine-day recess, Senator McConnell recommended “to the administration and to my colleagues in the Senate, both Democrats and Republicans, let’s wait a few weeks” before considering additional relief. The expiration for the UI boost was set to expire in five weeks. 

• June 4: Senate Republicans acknowledged the looming July 31 deadline for unemployment relief, but refused to say if “they support simply renewing it again.”

• June 19: Senator McConnell made a promise he would break one month later: “if there is something that’s going to happen it will emerge in the Senate, it will be written beginning in my office, and it will be done in July.”

• July 2: With expanded unemployment relief expiring at the end of the month, McConnell and Senate Republicans recessed the Senate for 17 days without extending the unemployment aid or passing any other coronavirus relief legislation. Meanwhile, Senator Thom Tillis took a stand against extending the expiring relief, saying through a spokesperson that doing so would “make the problem worse.”

• July 3: Senator John Cornyn said the $600 per week emergency unemployment boost was a “mistake” and that “we’re not going to do that again” once it expires.

• July 15: Senator David Perdue called expanded unemployment benefits a “premium” that served as “a hindrance” to people returning to work in an interview.

• July 20: After returning to work from a 17-day vacation, Senate Republicans proceeded to waste an entire week “infighting” and “bickering” over the next coronavirus relief package while refusing to take up the House-passed bill that had been languishing in McConnell’s legislative graveyard for over two months.

• July 21: Senator Joni Ernst indicated her opposition to renewing the expiring emergency unemployment relief, saying she’d rather “reward the folks that continue to work.”

• July 22: Senator Kelly Loeffler said on Fox News that she’s “not seeing a big need to extend the federal unemployment insurance.”

• July 23: With federal unemployment relief set to run out in most states at the end of the week, McConnell and Republicans “wasted a week at the worst possible time” by failing to extend the lifeline for workers before heading out of town for another long weekend.

• July 25: Because of the way states process unemployment claims, the $600 per week boost ran out for workers in 49 states.

• July 27: After waiting until the 11th hour, Senate Republicans finally released their plan that would gut benefits by two-thirds and is so complicated it “would take months for some states to implement” and uses a model the Trump Administration said months ago would present states with “extraordinary challenges” and make it “exceedingly difficult, if not impossible to implement.” Even Republicans have “little confidence” in the GOP proposal — Georgia’s Republican labor commissioner, for example, called the Senate GOP proposal “the dumbest idea ever.” 

• July 30: McConnell and Republicans attempted to pull a last-minute political stunt by proposing a one-week unemployment extension that would take states weeks to implement, rendering it useless. Instead of staying in Washington to fix this unemployment crisis, Republicans left town for yet another long weekend off.

• July 31: The $600 per week emergency unemployment benefits officially expired because of Republican opposition, leaving millions of families facing “hunger, evictions or bankruptcies” in battleground states across the country.

• August 1: Democrats urged McConnell to bring the Senate back into session and work through the weekend until Congress reached a bipartisan deal to extend unemployment relief. Republicans did not heed that call.

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