Briefs

The coronavirus has had an undeniably massive toll on the United States’s economy during the first half of 2020. The national unemployment rate for June was 11.1 percent, a sharp increase from the low 4 percent rate the Trump Administration touted pre-coronavirus. While Congress passed the bipartisan CARES Act on March 25th, which included stimulus checks and expanded unemployment benefits for many Americans, experts agree this is far from the last action the federal government will need to take to ease the economic impact of the coronavirus.

Economic Experts also agree that targeted interventions, such as stimulus checks, have the potential to leave certain groups behind. Furthermore, our current unemployment insurance system is designed to incentivize job-seeking by replacing only part of an individual’s lost income. Making matters worse, the temporary expanded unemployment insurance program is set to expire at the end of July.