WASHINGTON, D.C. – Another 837,000 Americans filed for unemployment last week, bringing the total number of workers drawing unemployment benefits to nearly 12 million amid a health crisis that has now claimed the lives of nearly 204,000 in the U.S. As the deadly and costly repercussions of the pandemic and Trump recession grow worse by the day, all eyes are on President Trump’s Senate allies to finally stop holding up critically needed relief for struggling workers, states, schools, and small businesses. Unless a deal is reached, the U.S. House is poised to pass the updated HEROES Act today that includes a full extension of the enhanced $600 unemployment benefit and improvements to the SBA PPP program.

The Senate has failed to pass any additional relief since the CARES Act and has blocked the previous version of the HEROES Act the House passed in May. Among the ‘key obstacles’ to progress has been a demand from right-wing Senators that corporations be granted blanket immunity against claims from workers mistreated during the pandemic – and now their #1 priority is rushing to replace Justice Ginsburg with Trump’s extreme right Supreme Court nominee and friend to corporations, Amy Coney Barrett.

“For months, President Trump and his Senate allies have gambled that the pandemic and recession would work itself out – and each week, more and more families and small businesses pay the price for their inaction,” said Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US. 

“No more games. The Senate has been given yet another opportunity to deliver aid to Americans devastated by the pandemic – and that should come before their relentless pursuit of more corporate giveaways and more power on the Supreme Court. This could be Congress’ last chance this year to help stop the economic bleeding and address the health crisis.”

As Trump and the Senate put all their energy into jamming through Trump’s extremist Supreme Court nominee, it has been…  

  • 187 days since the CARES Act was passed — the last significant comprehensive aid package Congress secured to help the American people through a crisis that is now well past its 6th month of raging through the U.S.
  • 61 days since the CARES Act’s weekly $600 enhanced federal unemployment benefits ran out, leaving many families struggling to make ends meet.
  • 53 days since applications for the Paycheck Protection Program closed, leaving small businesses that were denied from the program to fend for themselves.
  • 92 days until Trump’s eviction moratorium runs out, potentially resulting in thousands of families losing access to stable housing.

It’s Clear More — Not Less — Needs to Be Done as The Trump Recession Continues for Millions of Americans:     

  • Washington Post, 9/30: The covid-19 recession is the most unequal in modern U.S. history. While the nation overall has regained nearly half of the lost jobs, several key demographic groups have recovered more slowly, including mothers of school-age children, Black men, Black women, Hispanic men, Asian Americans, younger Americans (ages 25 to 34) and people without college degrees.
  • CNBC, 9/30: Airlines are hours away from cutting more than 30,000 jobs without billions more in federal aid. The terms of $25 billion in federal airline aid prohibited job cuts until Oct. 1.
  • PBS, 9/30: Small businesses in food industry testify about COVID-19 impact. That could spell trouble for an industry that has already lost nearly 100,000 U.S. restaurants — or 1 in 6 — since the start of the pandemic, according to the National Restaurant Association.
  • CNN, 9/29: Neighborhoods at risk for Covid see disproportionately high eviction rates. In a dozen large cities around the country, neighborhoods with elevated rates of medical conditions that put people at risk for serious illness from Covid-19 have seen disproportionately high rates of eviction filings over the last six months.
  • Axios, 9/29: Asian American unemployment spikes amid pandemic. The only group with worse rates than young Asians is young Black Americans, with 25.6% unemployment for women and 23.7% for men.

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