About 11.4 million people face losing their unemployment benefits starting in mid-March unless Congress acts quickly on the COVID-19 relief package, according to a new study.
The study was conducted by the nonprofit Century Foundation and detailed in a report by Fox Business.
“American workers faced a similar benefits cliff just this past December, when, according to the research 12 million workers were at risk of seeing their federal unemployment benefits expired on December 26 of that year,” the report said.
“Thankfully, Congress was able to include the Continued Assistance for Unemployed Workers (CAUW) Act in their end-of-the-year stimulus package, maintaining critical CARES Act programs — Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC), Pandemic Unemployment Compensation (PUC), and Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA)—until at least March 14, 2021, with some benefit payments continuing up to April 11.
“But the expiration of this new tranche of benefits is rapidly approaching. With negotiators hemmed in by a $900 billion cap in aid, the CAUW Act included the shortest period of benefits passed by Congress since the 1980s and this latest extension is winding down almost as soon as it started.
It added: “Continuing these benefits and adding President (Joe) Biden’s $400 per week top off would deliver nearly $10 billion in benefits per week.”
Citing the report, Fox Business said that up to 5 million Americans are expected to use up the extended benefits (PEUC), while 6.4 million will run out of the PUA benefits over the span of several weeks.