With tens of millions of workers facing the triple threat of the cutoff of the $600 weekly federal supplement to their state unemployment compensation, the resumption of evictions in most states, and a renewed upsurge in the coronavirus pandemic, the response of the US Congress was to go on vacation.
The Democratic-controlled House and the Republican-controlled Senate adjourned July 3 without taking up an extension of the $600 weekly supplement provided in the CARES Act, which is set to expire on July 25. Congress will not return to work until Monday, July 20, and there is little prospect that the full supplement will be extended, given intransigent opposition from corporate America, which has branded the payments a “disincentive” to forcing workers back into unsafe workplaces.
The $600 supplement has been a lifeline for tens of millions of workers thrown onto unemployment lines by the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic crisis. Large numbers of workers, particularly those in part-time and other contingent forms of work, actually saw an increase in income, because combined state and federal benefits brought them up to nearly $1,000 a week--above the official poverty line.
The looming unemployment benefit cutoff coincides with the expiration of temporary eviction moratoriums in 20 states, including Texas and Wisconsin. Eviction bans in nine others are set to expire by the end of the month, as well as the federal ban, which affects only properties insured or underwritten through federal agencies. A study by the real estate firm Amherst projects that almost 28 million households are at risk of eviction due to job losses related to the pandemic.
The Trump administration and most congressional Republicans are opposing renewal of the $600 unemployment supplement, proposing either a complete cutoff, an extension at a much lower level, or the transformation of the unemployment benefit into an incentive bonus for going back to work—essentially paying workers to risk their lives and the lives of their families and friends under conditions of a worsening pandemic.
The same options have been embraced by sections of the Democratic Party, with at least one prominent Democrat, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont, a multimillionaire, telling a local Chamber of Commerce that the $600 benefit “discourages work.” Some Senate Democrats have proposed to extend the supplement at lower levels indexed to the official unemployment rate (which grossly undercounts the actual jobless toll).
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned Monday that the COVID-19 pandemic provides new opportunities for the Islamic State extremist group, al-Qaida and their affiliates as well as neo-Nazis, white supremacists and hate groups.
The U.N. chief said it's too early to fully assess the implications of the coronavirus pandemic on terrorism, but all these groups seek to exploit divisions, local conflicts, failures in governing, and other grievances to advance their aims.
Guterres told the launch of United Nations Counter-Terrorism Week that the Islamic State group, which once controlled a vast swath of Syria and Iraq, is trying to reassert itself in both countries, ``while thousands of foreign terrorist fighters battle in the region.''
Notable Iraqi security analyst Hisham al-Hashimi was assassinated in Baghdad today, according to multiple reports.
On Monday, Agence France Presse reported that Hashimi was walking out of his Baghdad home when three gunmen on two motorcycles shot and killed him at close range.
Hashimi was a known and respected commentator on Iraqi affairs who was particularly knowledgable on the Islamic State. Just about an hour before his death, he tweeted that division in Iraq was the result of the ethnic and religious quota system put in place following the 2003 US invasion. The tweet, which some shared after his death, has now been liked more than 11,500 times.
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