“Foreclosures, hunger, homelessness, suicide,” said Michele Evermore, a senior policy analyst for the National Employment Law Project, a nonprofit workers’ rights group. The delay has also effectively reduced the scope of the extension and expansions in the relief bill because they are still scheduled to end in mid-March. A provision in the bill adding $300 a week to unemployment benefits would now last for 10 weeks, instead of the intended 11. “They’re basically being told, ‘You’re going to have to wait a little longer.’ But what they’re waiting for, we basically don’t know. And that is an unfair position to put people in when we were so close to the finish line days ago.”

Source: New York Times December 26, 2020 23:53 UTC