Funding is nearly exhausted for President Trump’s enhanced unemployment benefit program, meaning that jobless workers in some states are losing access to the relief money.
Trump, through executive order in August, made available up to $44 billion from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Disaster Relief Fund to provide assistance to workers sidelined by the pandemic in the form of a $300-a-week federal boost to unemployment benefits, to be matched by $100 from state governments.
To date, $30 billion of those dollars has been distributed. With money running low, the agency has said that total funding will be limited to six weeks, in total, for every state that has applied so far, a spokesman told the Washington Examiner Thursday.
Some states have already hit that limit. Texas was informed by FEMA on Wednesday that its enhanced federal payment ended last week.
The change means unemployed Texans will receive, on average, $350 a week in jobless payments, according to the spokesman for the state’s unemployment agency. Before, jobless workers used to receive roughly twice that amount when the enhanced employment payment was combined with regular state benefits.
Unemployed workers in other states will experience a similar fate as the enhanced payment ends, making it harder to make ends meet.
Currently, 48 states, Guam, and the District of Columbia have been approved for the payment. The other states and territories are under review, according to the FEMA spokesman.
The impetus behind Trump’s executive order on the enhanced payment was largely due to Congress’s inability to extend a $600-a-week added unemployment benefit that was enacted in the March CARES Act. The program has been expired for over a month. Meanwhile, lawmakers in both parties support extending the enhanced benefit, but they have so far failed to agree on a dollar amount for the payment.
House Democrats passed legislation that would extend the $600 payment until Jan. 31 for most jobless workers.
Senate Republicans on Tuesday released legislation that provides a $300-per-week federal unemployment insurance supplement.
