Hi there,

In this chaotic news cycle it may be tempting to tune out, but we hope you won’t—only an informed and engaged public can defend democracy. In these times of deep political polarization we need news that goes beyond play-by-play headlines, news that goes to the heart of each story by asking people to tell their own stories of abuses of power and injustice in their own words. If our journalism is important to you, please donate today. Every dollar makes a difference. Thank you so much.

Democracy Now!
Amy Goodman

Non-commercial news needs your support.

We rely on contributions from you, our viewers and listeners to do our work. If you visit us daily or weekly or even just once a month, now is a great time to make your monthly contribution.

Please do your part today.

Donate

Just Two States Are Distributing Trump’s Promised Unemployment Supplements

HeadlineAug 27, 2020

In economic news, just two U.S. states have begun distributing a $300-per-week federal supplement to weekly unemployment benefits — even though Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin promised on August 10 that “most states” would have the program up and running within two weeks. President Trump set up the makeshift $44 billion program by executive order after Republican lawmakers allowed enhanced unemployment benefits to expire one month ago.

Meanwhile, a federal moratorium on evictions expired Monday ahead of September 1, when rent and mortgage payments come due for 30 million Americans left unemployed during the pandemic. Princeton University’s Eviction Lab estimates up to 40 million people are now at risk of eviction in the coming months.

A new national survey finds one in five small business owners expect to close if economic conditions don’t improve in the next six months. And a study by the Economic Policy Institute finds some 12 million Americans have lost their employer-based health insurance since the start of the pandemic.

The original content of this program is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Please attribute legal copies of this work to democracynow.org. Some of the work(s) that this program incorporates, however, may be separately licensed. For further information or additional permissions, contact us.

Non-commercial news needs your support

We rely on contributions from our viewers and listeners to do our work.
Please do your part today.
Make a donation
Top