This is my stimulus update for Friday, August 14.
Stimulus News: Congress Out of Town
The big stimulus news is that the Senate is now out-of-town until September 8, the day after Labor Day. And the House doesn’t come back until September 14.
As I’ve told you all this week, Mitch McConnell has had the Senate technically in session, though the vast majority of members were home, but yesterday the Senate officially adjourned for the remainder of August.
So I know there are some bright personalities out there who have been teasing you recently that a second stimulus check could come in August, but let’s be real. As I’ve said before, Trump can’t exercise presidential authority to do a second stimulus check, and with Congress out, and the Democratic convention next week and the G.O.P. convention the week after that, and negotiations on pause for all practical purposes, how’s that going to happen? It’s not; it’s just not.
That said, could stimulus negotiations in some way, shape, or form happen before both houses of Congress are back in session? Of course? Mnuchin and Meadows and Pelosi and Schumer I suppose could still have conference calls or something, I will continue to keep a watchful eye on that situation especially as it pertains to a second stimulus check.
Unemployment
But beyond that what I’m really curious about and interested in is seeing the rollout or lack thereof of Trump’s executive actions, particularly the one on unemployment because I know that affects so many of you and so many around the country.
But first on a national scale, jobless claims for the week ending August 8 were 963,000. This is less than the 1.1 million expected and the first time the number of new jobless claims has been below one million since March.
Now let’s talk about Trump’s unemployment memorandum.
Just to catch you up if you’re new around here, Trump signed a presidential memorandum this past Saturday with a plan for unemployment retroactive to the week ending August 1.
Under this plan, those receiving at least $100 in unemployment benefits, including regular state unemployment as well as the PUA, would be eligible for an additional $300 per week kick-in from the federal government and, if a state chooses to go along with it, an additional $100 state kick-in, making the total an extra $400 per week. As I’ve done the math before probably would last about four or five weeks or something like that.
This is not technically an extension of the former $600 per week program that was created essentially by Congress, this is a different animal created by the President, and it’s unclear at this point how willing and/or successful various states will be at rolling out Trump’s plan given that so many struggled for so long to even roll out the extra $600.
I have not taken the time to research how every single state has responded to Trump’s memorandum on unemployment.
State Map
But somebody has. Matt Darling from a design and consulting firm ideas42 created this handy map that has aggregated various statements from state governors and unemployment offices indicating which state, namely, the one in green, West Virginia, has said that it intends to implement the executive order. I showed you the statement from Republican West Virginia Governor Jim Justice essentially committing to the Trump plan.
The two states in yellow, Ohio and South Carolina, gave indication that they intend to implement a limited version of the executive order.
For example, in Ohio, Republican Governor Mike DeWine said that the state will likely not pay the extra $100 state-funded amount weekly but would accept and distribute the $300 federal kick-in.
And then according to the map the states in red, being California, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and New York, have supposedly given some indication that they will not be able to implement Trump’s memorandum on unemployment with the states in purple, which are obviously the majority of the states, unsure where they stand.
Now, I’ve shown you before what California Governor Newsom and what New York Governor Cuomo have said about the memorandum, the words from the Kentucky governor are equally strong.
Kentucky got the red on this map because Democratic Governor Andy Beshear said, “Based on calculations of how much money was put aside, this federal program might only last for five weeks, meaning states would be left picking up that full $400. And just looking at the last three months to get through the end of the year, we’d be looking at over $1.5 billion — something that’s just not possible for the Commonwealth of Kentucky.”
But on the other hand, Pennsylvania got red on the map, but a statement from Pennsylvania Democratic Governor Tom Wolf was not quite as opposed, it read, with respect to the plan under Trump’s unemployment memorandum, “It would have to be created from scratch and run parallel with Pennsylvania’s existing unemployment benefits programs. This is not something that any state will be able to do quickly.”
So that’s not a hard no, so take that red on Pennsylvania with a grain of salt, in fact take this entire map with a grain of salt. I have not independently verified every single item on this map, I do note that there are some mistakes in the legend, for example the legend refers to Trump’s executive action on unemployment as an “executive order” while technically speaking it was a memorandum, and there’s a typo in there, but for what it’s worth, this map could probably give an idea.
Also keep in mind that even if this map is 100% accurate as of this morning, this stuff is obviously changing on a daily basis.
Ro Khanna
This isn’t directly stimulus news, but Representative Ro Khanna. He, along with Representative Tim Ryan, drafted the Emergency Money for the People Act, which was one of the O.G. $2,000-per-month stimulus proposals.
Well, yesterday he wrote a blog post stating that while he will support the Biden/Harris ticket for the 2020 presidential election, he is not voting favor of the Democratic platform because he does not believe that it goes far enough with respect to universal healthcare.
Khanna wrote, “I will be voting ‘No’ on the platform because when we say that healthcare is a human right, we must truly mean it—and fight for it. I believe if we remain stuck on such concepts as ‘affordable’ when talking about solutions to healthcare accessibility, we are badly constrained inside a limited debate.”
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