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A $300 federal enhanced unemployment benefit will start going out this week for some. The benefits stem from an Executive Memorandum President Trump signed on August 8th as negotiations over a stimulus packaged stalled in Congress. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) announced that Arizona, Iowa, Louisiana, and New Mexico are the first states FEMA has approved under the lost wages assistance program (LWA). In a statement, FEMA noted that the approval authorizes these states to begin paying $300 a week in addition to state unemployment benefits: “FEMA Administrator Pete Gaynor approved the states of Arizona, Iowa, Louisiana, and New...

Rank-and-file Democrats are pushing party leaders to vote this week on an extension of federal unemployment benefits that expired at the end of July. Democratic leaders have already made the remarkable decision to cut the summer recess short, calling the House back to Washington on Saturday to vote on legislation providing billions of dollars to the Postal Service. Now, dozens of Democratic lawmakers want to expand the weekend itinerary, pressing leadership to stage another vote reinstating the lapsed $600 weekly unemployment insurance that benefited millions of workers laid off by the coronavirus recession. In a soon-to-be-sent letter to Speaker Nancy...

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Governor Tom Wolf sent a letter to Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation reaffirming his support for an extension of the federal $600 weekly unemployment benefit that expired last month, his office said Friday in a press release. With Senate Republicans failing to pass a bill continuing the program, President Trump on Aug. 8 authorized a plan that will reduce and delay payments to workers in need, end the benefit for 30,000 Pennsylvanians and increase the burden on states, Wolf said.

With close to 30 million Americans still unemployed and thousands of businesses facing an uncertain future, calls for a “guaranteed income” are becoming louder. Guaranteed income is giving cash to people who need it because they’re living in poverty. It should not be confused with a “Universal Basic Income,” which is money given to everyone regardless of employment situation or wealth. The idea is centuries old but has actually been tried in very few nations. The most recent experiment occurred among 2000 unemployed workers in Finland. And, not surprisingly, it was mostly a failure. There were slight improvements in the...

South Dakota is the first state to decline President Donald Trump's executive order to restart the coronavirus unemployment bonus at a rate of up to $400 per week, The Washington Post reported. Republican Gov. Kristi Noem, a rising star in the party, declined the bonus payments for those unemployed in her state because it never shut down during the global coronavirus pandemic. "My administration is very grateful for the additional flexibility that this effort would have provided, but South Dakota is in the fortunate position of not needing to accept it," Noem said. Trump's order diverted unused funds from federal...

resident Donald Trump’s current proposal for additional unemployment benefits of $300 a week just doesn’t go far enough, California Gov. Gavin Newsom said during a Wednesday press conference. But he said he won’t “look a gift horse in the mouth” now that Trump has said states do not have to come up with another $100 a week on their own. The Democratic governor said he’s working on how California can process the $300 in the president’s proposal “as quickly and efficiently as possible.” The $600 in weekly additional federal unemployment benefits expired at the end of July, and Congress and...

Fake News:Arizona:We are very thankful to President Trump for extending these critical benefits. We will be working diligently to apply these changes in Arizona, and will have more information early in the week," said a spokesperson for Ducey on Saturday. Ohio: Ohio accepts plan for $300 in federal unemployment aid Alabama:Alabama legislators say state could contribute to Executive order benefits North Carolina: North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said on Wednesday that he is preparing to accept for the state extended unemployment benefits that President Donald Trump directed in an executive order,

Unemployment claims fell to less than 1 million last week for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S. in March, the Labor Department reported Thursday. New applications for unemployment benefits are down significantly from a peak of near 7 million in March. The number of people collecting unemployment benefits through regular state programs, which cover the majority of workers, decreased at the end of July. That figure, at about 16.1 million, was still well above the pre-pandemic peak of 6.6 million in 2009. “We’re just running a lot of layoffs week after week even as a lot...

Michigan, New York received most benefits per worker under program that expired July 31, Wall Street Journal analysis shows The federal government spent nearly $250 billion on extra $600-a-week unemployment benefits from early April to the end of July, the Labor Department said, as millions of workers were laid off because of the coronavirus pandemic. Workers who permanently lost their jobs, were furloughed or had their hours cut were able to tap $600 in federal unemployment benefits on top of the amount they qualified for from the state, under a relief law Congress passed and President Trump signed in March....

SNIP Vincent Okoye, 38, of Las Vegas, was charged by criminal complaint with one count of possession of a counterfeit and unauthorized access device and one count of aggravated identity theft. Okoye’s initial court appearance in federal court has not yet been scheduled. The complaint alleges that, on July 15, 2020, law enforcement executed a search warrant at Okoye’s residence in Las Vegas. They found: * Over 100 credit and debit cards not issued in Okoye’s name, including at least 11 debit cards issued by DETR and at least 12 debit cards issued by Arizona’s Department of Economic Security (DES)....

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi slammed the executive actions President Trump took this weekend to provide assistance for Americans struggling amid the coronavirus as weak and an "illusion" on "Fox News Sunday" with Chris Wallace, as she defended Democrats' stance asking for trillions more in aid as negotiations with the White House and Senate Republicans have stalled. "No, in fact, what the president did is -- I agreed what the Republican senator said -- is unconstitutional slop," Pelosi, D-Calif, said, alluding to a statement Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., put out criticizing Trump's executive actions. She also emphasized the alleged "weakness" of...

LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Las Vegas police say they are working with the Nevada unemployment department (DETR) to investigate possible fraud after a traffic stop near Palace Station over the weekend. According to the department, officers discovered methamphetamine, $45,000 in cash, and multiple unemployment cards with various names on them during a traffic stop Saturday. In a Facebook post on Sunday, the department said two people were arrested and charged with felony possession of a controlled substance and felony possession of a credit card without the owner's consent. Just last week, the FBI announced a similar arrest. Authorities said 38-year-old...

Tax preparers are concerned that many of the millions of Americans receiving unemployment benefits due to the pandemic are unaware that they might owe money to the IRS next year. Jobless benefits are subject to federal income taxes, as well as state income taxes in most parts of the country. But workers who are collecting benefits for the first time may not be aware of those tax implications, or they might opt against having taxes withheld from their benefit payments. People who do not have enough money withheld during the year could end up with smaller refunds or balances due...

<p>This news release presents statistics from two monthly surveys. The household survey measures labor force status, including unemployment, by demographic characteristics. The establishment survey measures nonfarm employment, hours, and earnings by industry. For more information about the concepts and statistical methodology used in these two surveys, see the Technical Note.</p>

Frustrated by Republican opposition to the continuation of the coronavirus stimulation package provision that added a $600/week supplement to normal unemployment compensation, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) told CNN's Anderson Cooper that "Republicans have disdain toward working people. They argue that when combined with the usual unemployment benefits the added $600 makes staying unemployed more remunerative than going back to work for many of our lower-wage employees. Well, duh. Who wouldn't prefer leisure to work, especially if it comes with a bigger income." "Republicans act as if the 30 million currently unemployed is a bad thing," the Speaker went on....

Earlier this year, the U.S. government passed the largest piece of stimulus legislation in our nation's history. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act included a very generous expansion of unemployment insurance benefits. The idea was to help people to keep paying their bills during the forced COVID-19 shutdowns. These benefits are expiring, and Congress is now fighting over whether to extend them as they are or to modify them. The proper approach is to phase these benefits out as quickly as possible. It is typical that during nationwide economic downturns the federal government provides supplemental funding to boost...

New jobless claims have risen for the second week in a row, after dropping for 15 straight weeks, as spiking coronavirus cases delay plans to reopen or cause some states to backpedal. The Department of Labor said on Thursday that 1.416 million Americans filed for unemployment in the week ended on July 25, an increase of 12,000 from the prior week. It marked the 19th straight week that more than 1 million people have applied for unemployment benefits.

Back in 2009, Nancy Pelosi infamously declared the best way to revive the economy was to dole out ever-more-generous food stamps and unemployment benefits. The more people collecting welfare, the better. At the time, this notion seemed laughable. Now this economic illiteracy seems to have become conventional wisdom. This was a headline in the New York Times recently: "End of $600 Unemployment Bonus Could Push Millions Past the Brink." Here was the lead on the "news" piece: "When millions of Americans began losing their jobs in March, the federal government stepped in with a life preserver: $600 a week in...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday dismissed out of hand the possibility that Democrats would agree to a short-term extension of juiced-up unemployment benefits while lawmakers iron out details of a broader coronavirus relief package. “I would be very much averse to separating this out and lose all leverage for meeting all of the other needs,” Mrs. Pelosi, California Democrat, told reporters on Capitol Hill. “It’s a fraudulent tactic and with all due respect to you, an unworthy question when it comes to meeting the needs of America’s working families,” she said. Pressed again, Mrs. Pelosi repeatedly said no. “Do...

Unemployment benefits expire tomorrow The $600 a week unemployment benefits are scheduled to end tomorrow. The Cares Act — the $2.2 trillion stimulus package — authorized $600 a week of enhanced unemployment benefits. The Cares Act references July 31, 2020 as the official expiration date of these unemployment benefits, which are also known as Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation. However, the U.S. Labor Department says that states can pay unemployment benefits no later than the week ending one week before July 31, 2020. Since July 31 is not a Saturday or Sunday, this means the week prior becomes the end date...