Tag Archives: COVID-19 relief bill

Biden says unemployed offered jobs must take them or lose benefits

By Nandita Bose

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday defended himself against critics who say expanded unemployment benefits offered in the COVID-19 relief bill passed in March are keeping Americans from taking new jobs.

Biden said the administration will remind U.S. states this week that any unemployed American offered a comparable job must take it or risk losing unemployment benefits. He is also directing the U.S. Labor Department to work with states to reinstate requirements that those receiving unemployment benefits must demonstrate they are actively looking for work.

“If you’re receiving unemployment benefits and you’re offered a suitable job, you can’t refuse that job and just keep getting unemployment benefits,” Biden said.

Republican lawmakers blamed a bad jobs report last week on the Democratic president’s decision to offer expanded unemployment benefits through August. Some Republican governors have scrapped the added benefits, directing the additional dollars elsewhere.

(Reporting By Nandita Bose and Jarrett RenshawEditing by Chizu Nomiyama and Howard Goller)

U.S. House to vote Wednesday on Biden’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 package

By Makini Brice

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives will take up the Biden administration’s $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill on Wednesday, officials said on Tuesday, with the chamber’s expected approval enabling the Democratic president to sign the legislation into law later this week.

Passage of the massive package, one of the biggest U.S. anti-poverty measures since the 1960s, would give Biden and the Democrats who control Congress a major legislative victory less than two months into his presidency.

The House will consider the legislation starting at 9:00 a.m. EST (1400 GMT) on Wednesday, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters. The bill was just sent over to the House on Tuesday morning from the Senate.

The House Rules Committee announced it will meet at midday on Tuesday to prepare the bill for floor action. The committee sets the terms for debate and amendments on bills.

The Senate, where Democrats have effective control, passed its version of the bill on Saturday after a marathon overnight session. The upper chamber of Congress eliminated or pared back some provisions in an original House bill, including an increase in the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour.

The changes the Senate made must be approved by the House before it can make its way to Biden’s desk.

Representative Hakeem Jeffries, a member of the House Democratic leadership, called it a “transformational bill” and told reporters, “We’ll pass it, hopefully with some Republican votes.”

Democrats hold a very narrow majority in the House, meaning they can afford to lose only a handful of votes by their own members against the bill.

The first version of the bill passed the House without a single Republican vote. Two moderate Democrats joined Republicans in voting against that version. One of them, Representative Kurt Schrader of Oregon, said on Monday he would now vote for the bill with the Senate changes.

“My concerns remain on the size and scope of this bill but believe the Senate changes provide meaningful relief for Oregonians in need,” Schrader wrote in a post on Facebook.

Republicans, who broadly supported economic relief early in the coronavirus pandemic, have criticized the price tag of the Biden relief package.

Some progressives in the House have criticized the Senate’s changes. But Representative Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat who heads the Congressional Progressive Caucus, told reporters she thought members of her group would back the legislation.

White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki praised the legislation at a news conference on Monday, saying that while there were some changes on the margins, it represented the “core” of what Biden originally proposed.

(Reporting by David Morgan and Lisa Lambert; Editing by Scott Malone, Paul Simao and Jonathan Oatis)

U.S. Senate Democrats drop minimum wage plan for $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief bill

By Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Democrats, anxious for Congress to pass President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill within the next two weeks, have resolved a potential sticking point for getting the sweeping legislation through the narrowly divided Senate.

The House of Representatives narrowly approved the bill to fight the pandemic and boost the economy early Saturday. The action now moves to the Senate, where Democrats do not expect much if any Republican help, even though polls indicate a majority of Americans – around 70% – favor the measure.

Over the weekend, top Democrats abandoned a controversial plan to use U.S. tax policy as an incentive for businesses to more than double the minimum wage to $15 per hour, according to a source familiar with the negotiations. The proposal would have complicated Senate passage.

Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris may have to cast a tie-breaking vote in a chamber where Republicans control 50 seats and Democrats and their allies control the other 50. Even this outcome depends on all the Democrats staying united behind the first major bill to come through Congress in the Biden administration.

“We’re moving ahead with a bill that probably will get no Republican votes in the Senate, but will have broad Republican support in the country,” Senator Chris Coons, a Democrat, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday.

Republicans in Congress say the plan is too expensive and includes things like transportation projects that have nothing to do with relief for COVID-19.

“It’s $1.9 trillion, more than half of it won’t even be spent in this calendar year … So how could it be about COVID relief? No one expects a year from now that we’ll be in the COVID crisis we are in now,” Republican Senator Rob Portman told ABC’s “This Week.”

STICKING POINT RESOLVED

The House-passed COVID-19 aid bill would raise the national hourly minimum wage for the first time since 2009, to $15 from $7.25. But the Senate’s rules expert said the wage hike could not be included as long as Democrats are using a maneuver that allows the coronavirus bill to pass with a simple majority, rather than the 60 votes needed to advance most legislation in the 100-seat chamber.

Democrats dropped the plan to get around this setback by using the tax code to push for a higher wage after running into a number of political and practical hurdles.

That decision resolved a potential sticking point for the legislation. While progressives want the wage increase kept in the COVID-19 bill, some moderate Democrats like Senator Joe Manchin favor a smaller increase in the minimum wage, to about $11 an hour.

Both chambers must pass the same version of the bill before sending it to Biden for signing into law. Democrats want this to happen by March 14, when enhanced unemployment benefits expire.

The measure would pay for vaccines and send a new round of aid to households, small businesses and state and local governments. The big-ticket items include $1,400 direct payments to individuals, a $400-per-week federal unemployment benefit through Aug. 29, and help for those in difficulty paying rents and home mortgages during the pandemic.

Democrats say the package is needed to fight a pandemic that has killed more than 500,000 Americans and thrown millions out of work.

(Reporting by Susan Cornwell; Additional reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Mary Milliken, Nick Zieminski and Chizu Nomiyama)

U.S. bipartisan lawmakers propose $908 billion COVID-19 relief bill

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A bipartisan group of U.S. senators and members of the House of Representatives on Tuesday proposed a $908 billion COVID-19 relief bill that would fund measures through March 31, including $228 billion in additional paycheck protection program funds for hotels, restaurants and other small businesses.

State and local governments would receive direct aid under the bipartisan bill, the lawmakers said. Senator Mitt Romney, a Republican, said the plan contains $560 billion in “repurposed” funding from the CARES Act enacted in March.

The lawmakers, speaking to reporters, said they have not yet secured backing for their plan from the White House, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell or House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Their support would be essential for a compromise bill to advance in the House and Senate.

But it does contain provisions that Republicans have been pressing for: new liability protections for businesses and schools grappling with the coronavirus pandemic.

Pelosi and her Democrats would win a central demand: aid to state and local governments.

A compromise $300 per week in additional unemployment benefits would also be in the package, according to the lawmakers.

Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin were expected to discuss coronavirus aid and a must-pass government funding bill later on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Franklin Paul and Chris Reese)