As Bills Pile Up, Many Anxiously Keep Tabs on the Stimulus Bill

More than 10 million Americans who have been left in financial limbo — many of them on the brink of poverty — spent the weekend anxiously awaiting word about whether President Donald Trump would continue to withhold approval of the $900 billion pandemic relief package sent to him on Christmas Eve.

The bill extends unemployment benefits that ran out Saturday while also providing most taxpayers with a one-time payment of $600, a vital boost for financially pressed workers and an economy on the edge of another contraction.

But Trump’s unexpected demand for a $2,000 per individual payment put the aid effort in jeopardy, leaving those on the financial edge to wonder how they would pay the rent and put food on their tables.

Then, on Sunday night, he signed the measure.

One of those awaiting the president's action, Melissa Martinez, 52, of Westminster, Colorado, said she had applied for more than 50 jobs since being laid off as an operations manager for a transportation company in April. Like millions of others, her unemployment benefits expired the day after Christmas. “I’m out of options,” she said.

She has a lung condition that requires her to be on oxygen and makes her vulnerable to COVID-19 so she has only looked for jobs that will allow her to work remotely. Without the stimulus money, she said she would seek jobs that require her to show up in person.

Jennifer Bryant and her family need the aid in the stimulus bill to keep their home in Flowery Branch, Georgia. She and her fiance, who have five children between them, had been collecting the now-expired unemployment benefits. Besides the extension of those benefits, the relief package would keep in place a moratorium on evictions that will otherwise expire Thursday.

“When Congress passed it, it was the biggest sigh of relief for us,” said Bryant, 39, who is about $10,000 behind on her rent. But then she watched a video that Trump posted on Twitter on Tuesday, in which he called the bill “a disgrace” and implied he would not sign it.

“I went to bed in tears,” Bryant said. “To have our hope pulled out from under us, our lifeline. It’s devastating.”

Trump had been expected to quickly sign the bill, which was passed last Monday, after months of congressional gridlock over a successor to the $2.2 trillion CARES Act. He had been largely absent from negotiations over the bill. His video surprised even senior administration officials and represented an embarrassment for his top economic lieutenant, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who helped negotiate the agreement with Congress and had applauded the passage of the bill earlier that day.

House Democrats had planned to vote Monday on a stand-alone bill that would provide for the $2,000 direct payments once the roughly $1.4 trillion government funding measure attached to the stimulus was signed into law. Government funding had been scheduled to lapse at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday.

Sen. Patrick J. Toomey, R-Pa., urged the president on “Fox News Sunday” to sign the original compromise bill, adding that “time is running out.”

“I understand he wants to be remembered for advocating for big checks,” Toomey said. “But the danger is he’ll be remembered for chaos and misery and erratic behavior if he allows this to expire.”

President-elect Joe Biden favors more stimulus after he takes office on Jan. 20, but getting that passed is unlikely to be any easier than it was for the finally approved $900 billion stimulus.

In addition to the one-time payments of $600, the stimulus legislation will provide a $300 a week subsidy to all workers receiving unemployment benefits. It will also renew two programs created by the CARES Act in March: Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, which provides benefits to workers who have exhausted their state aid, and Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, which covers gig workers, part-time hires, seasonal workers and others who do not qualify for traditional unemployment benefits. The second program has been crucial for Reiina Crider of Federal Way, Washington, who worked as a pet groomer and a delivery driver for DoorDash. When the virus struck and schools closed, she stopped working to take care of her 15-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter, who is deaf and has autism. Crider, 36, is also the guardian of her 14-year-old niece.

The $211 she receives each week from the program plus some additional federal benefits have not been enough to keep her from falling behind on rent, and she owes her landlord $1,500. Waiting for Congress to make up its mind on the bill had been “terrifying,” she said.

“It’s the worst thing I could possibly imagine,” she said. “If you told me a year ago that the entire country would be suffering the way it is now, with no help from the government, I would have told you that would never happen. We live in America.”

More than 20 million Americans are collecting unemployment benefits and the unemployment rate stands at 6.7%. A year ago, before the pandemic hit, the jobless rate touched 3.5%, tying a 50-year low.

For those living on the edge, the recent political gamesmanship has been infuriating.

“We don’t have time for them to argue,” said Shannon Williams of Toledo, Ohio, who has lost two jobs to the pandemic. “Everybody needs help sometimes and right now, a lot of people need it.”

Many of the jobless can’t wait much longer for that help. Robert Van Sant’s unemployment benefits of $484 a week don’t cover his monthly expenses of $2,200 in rent, utilities, internet access, food and other necessities. But the additional federal money would ease the strain on his savings account, which he has been draining to make ends meet.

“I was really relieved” to hear that the legislation had passed, said Van Sant, 51, who was furloughed from his job as a bartender in Chicago. “It would have meant I could go to the grocery store and actually buy some food that I really want instead of eating beans and bread and bologna.”

Van Sant’s future is tied to the fate of he stimulus bill. Without the aid, he said he would have to move back to his hometown of Bettendorf, Iowa, where the cost of living is lower. “It just saddens me. I’ve worked my whole life to live in the city, and everything that comes with it,” he said. The stimulus bill will allow A.J. Holley, 50, who lost her job as a restaurant manager, to continue receiving benefits. Absent the relief money, she had planned to pay her bills with funds from her 401(k), which she recently liquidated. By March she would no longer be able to pay rent on her apartment, which she shares with her 19-year-old daughter.

It will be months before the promise of two new vaccines shows up in a more robust job market and economy. For hard-hit businesses like restaurants and bars, where employment stands at 10.2 million, down from 12.3 million in February, cold weather that limits outdoor seating will compound the pain.

Some unemployed restaurant workers, like Williams in Toledo, did find new jobs, only to see them disappear, too. Williams was let go in May from Chipotle, then briefly worked at a Chrysler plant until several workers on her assembly line contracted the virus and she was laid off again.

Her unemployment benefits do not cover her bills, including $1,094 in rent and utilities. She was able to pay her landlord in November, but was nearly $500 short in December.

The stimulus bill will provide a $600 stimulus payment for Williams, 34, and three of her four children. The money will allow her to catch up on December’s rent, and pay January’s as well.

Throughout the long debate over the bill in Congress, most economists had agreed that additional stimulus was crucial to keeping the economy from sliding backward. And the fragility of the economy, they say, is only matched by the precarious state of unemployed workers.

“We desperately need the stimulus,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Grant Thornton, an accounting firm in Chicago. “These people are running on fumes. It’s beyond irresponsible — it’s unconscionable and cruel.”

“We don’t want the wounds caused by COVID to fester and the scars to become deeper,” she added. “The hope is to heal.”