Will Congress throw the American economy off a cliff? (Opinion) – By Ryan Cooper (The Week) / July 20 2020
America is careening towards an economic cliff. The resurgence of the coronavirus pandemic is clearly beginning to bite the economies of many states, and deeper recessionary forces are taking hold. Eviction moratoriums are set to end in many states at the end of the month, and 28 million people could become homeless in a matter of weeks. Perhaps most importantly, the huge boost to unemployment insurance that Congress passed as part of the CARES Act is going to expire on July 25 — sucking billions of dollars of spending out of the economy, and driving millions more Americans into destitution.
Republicans in Congress, of course, have been dithering and procrastinating. After taking a two-week vacation, it looks extremely unlikely that they will get anything passed before the program expires, and they may not do anything at all. The effect would be to fling America into the economic abyss.
As I have written before, super-unemployment is the only thing keeping tens of millions of Americans from starving — indeed, the program is by far the most generous thing the federal government has done for lower-income people in generations. It is also the main thing propping up spending more broadly, and hence supporting tens of millions of other jobs that depend on benefit-collectors having money in their pockets.
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