July 10, 2020

Why Aren’t We Extending the $600 Unemployment Benefit?

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Today is July 10th. In 21 days the extra $600 per week in unemployment benefits ends.

COVID-19 cases are already skyrocketing, deaths are starting to rise, and states are beginning to close up again. Without the expanded UI, millions of Americans will soon be penniless and back in food lines.

That’s three weeks away. Why are we waiting on this? Why do we keep doing things at the last second, which allows states no time to respond? Extend the benefits now. It would be nice to toss in some aid to states and cities at the same time, but the bare minimum we need to do is extend the UI benefits.

What’s the holdup?

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ONE MORE QUICK THING:

Or at least we hope. It’s fall fundraising time, and we’re trying to raise $250,000 to help fund Mother Jones’ journalism during a shorter than normal three-week push.

If you’re reading this, a fundraising pitch at the bottom of an article, you must find our team’s reporting valuable and we hope you’ll consider supporting it with a donation of any amount right now if you can.

It’s really that simple. But if you’d like to read a bit more, our membership lead, Brian Hiatt, has a post for you highlighting some of our newsroom's impressive, impactful work of late—including two big investigations in just one day and covering voting rights the way it needs to be done—that we hope you’ll agree is worth supporting.

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