Springfield News-Leader
Tens of thousands of Missourians receiving unemployment benefits will not lose a week of payments or $300 bonuses due to a delay in enacting the new federal stimulus bill, the state labor department said Monday.
Questions about a lost week began late last month after President Trump initially refused to sign the bill after Congress passed it Dec. 21. He spent the next six days holding out for larger stimulus checks and cuts to foreign aid, to no avail.
The delay raised concerns because the bill contained extensions for special programs created for gig workers, the self-employed and those who’ve exhausted their benefits that were set to expire Dec. 26.
Springfield News-Leader
After weeks of negotiations and months of inaction, congressional leaders said Sunday night they ve struck a deal on another coronavirus relief package.
The $900 billion proposal, which will be approved as part of a larger government funding bill and sent to the president this week, contains a wide variety of programs intended to get the country through the winter with COVID-19 still at large.
Here s a rundown of what s inside.
Stimulus checks
The bill calls for a second round of direct payments of up to $600 per single adult and up to $1,200 per couple filing jointly half of what Congress authorized in the spring.
Springfield News-Leader
Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley’s push to pass another round of stimulus checks with the same amount of money as last time hit a roadblock Friday with a fellow Republican senator.
Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said Hawley s proposal was too expensive and too broad as he blocked his motion to pass $1,200 checks by unanimous consent.
Congressional leaders are working on a separate plan to send checks of $600 to $700 per person as part of a larger stimulus package that will likely also include a new round of loans to businesses as well as extra money for people on unemployment.
Springfield News-Leader
Unemployment payments for more than 70,000 Missourians will soon dry up without action from Congress before the end of the year.
The latest numbers from the U.S. Department of Labor showed that in the last week of November, 35,669 people were using a federal program giving them 13 extra weeks of payments beyond what the state offers.
Another 43,416 were receiving payments through a separate program paying self-employed workers and independent contractors who don t usually qualify for benefits.
But those programs, which Congress created in the CARES Act in March, are both set to expire Dec. 26, setting up what experts have called a benefit cliff for some 12 million nationwide with the worst luck in the job market since COVID-19 arrived.