Labor Department says jobless won’t lose two weeks of assistance after Trump’s delay in signing bill

The original CARES Act extended $600/week supplemental payments. Those expired back in July. An executive action in August gave a temporary boost of $300/week to some people, but that funding quickly ran out. The extension finally signed into law by Trump on Sunday won’t provide retroactive payments to July, but it does give workers 11 more weeks of expanded benefits. It will have to be renewed again under the Biden administration, because there’s no way the nation is out from under the pandemic in 11 weeks.

At least one state—Florida, of course—started kicking people out of the program as of this weekend, when it was expired for the very brief period before Trump signed the bill. Even though the federal programs are starting up again, it’s not clear for unemployed Floridians if they’ll be forced to reapply for benefits or be automatically reenrolled. That’s after the state was weeks behind in getting the aid out initially last spring and summer.

That it took Trump’s Department of Labor two full days to clarify that states should proceed as if no lapse had occurred is a problem. Better late than never, yes, but it’s already caused major hiccups in state systems and is going to delay checks for millions of people.