By Mike Ludwig
Federal data shows that nearly 11% of adults – including up to 14% of adults living with children – report that their household does not have enough to eat. Hopes are dwindling that Congress will adopt another pandemic aid package before the end of the year, as President Trump struggles to invalidate the election he lost.
Economic recovery slows as the United States experiences an upsurge in infections, hospitalizations and deaths from Covid-19, threatening to put cities and states with high infection rates back into lockdown to prevent hospitals from falling are overwhelmed. The federal government estimates that 10 million people – including 4 million children – will fall below the federal poverty line by the end of 2020, as unemployment benefits are due to end in December without further help from Congress.
But Donald Trump is now focused on his attempt to invalidate the election, increasing disinformation and conspiracy theories as his campaign staff escalate unsuccessful lawsuits to challenge the election result. Discussions between the Trump administration and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi over aid in the face of the pandemic were halted in October. Administration officials have said they are unlikely to take the lead in negotiations now, leaving the initiative to the GOP (Republican Party), that is, Senate Majority Leader Mitch. McConnell, according to Washington Post. Mitch McConnell attempted to portray Donald Trump’s unprecedented behavior as normal, arguing in the Senate this week that Trump has the right to challenge the election in court.
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Congress has failed to agree on pandemic help since a plan was adopted in spring 2020 [CARES Act] of $ 2,200 billion which provided for checks for economic recovery [consommation] up to $ 1,200 for a single eligible taxpayer [2400 pour les couples et 500 dollars pour les enfants].
As all eyes are on the upcoming elections in Georgia [élection des deux sénateurs le 5 janvier 2021] who could wrest the Senate from its control [1]Mitch McConnell said adopting another plan to help fight the pandemic before the end of the year was a priority. However, he is pushing for a “very targeted” stimulus package, similar to a $ 500 billion proposal that Democrats rejected a few months ago, arguing that it was not providing enough economic aid.
Democrats had gotten the hang of it with their proposal titled HEROES Act, a plan initially totaling $ 3.4 trillion that included $ 2.2 trillion in checks of $ 1,200 for every single citizen. [l’éligibilité était accrue par rapport au CARES Act], as well as much needed help for state and local governments. However, Mitch McConnell has always refused to examine this package in the Senate, where the conservatives, who are wary of social spending, have already rebelled against the compromise measures proposed by the Trump administration and the moderates. In late September, Democrats cut $ 1 trillion from the HEROES Act as passed by the House of Representatives in May.
Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other top Democrats are now demanding that Republicans drop their support for Trump’s efforts to overturn the election and adopt pandemic measures.
“What are they thinking? People are suffering, ”said Nancy Pelosi at a press conference on Thursday, November 12th. “They seem to have a mental block [sic] to do what is right. ”
Analysts say Senate Republicans are unlikely to adopt a strong stimulus package now that Pfizer has released preliminary data showing its Covid-19 vaccine to be 90% effective. However, this vaccine is still being tested and has yet to be approved by federal regulatory authorities. Consumer advocates warned this week that preliminary data from Pfizer does not demonstrate whether the vaccine is safe or whether it would effectively prevent Covid-19 in vulnerable populations.
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On Tuesday 10 November, Mitch McConnell pointed out that unemployment had fallen to 6.9% [chiffre officiel qui élimine entre autres tous ceux et celles qui ont renoncé à chercher un emploi ; les estimations non officielles les plus sérieuses situent le chômage et son halo à hauteur de 11%], which proves, according to him, that only a “very targeted” stimulus is necessary. However, unemployment could rise again if the third wave of Covid-19 forces even more regions of the country into confinement. Illinois released guidelines on Wednesday November 11 urging people to stay in their homes, and the city of Chicago will issue an official home care advisory starting Monday, November 16. Other states and cities will likely follow. A record 153,000 new cases of Covid-19 were reported in the United States for the day of Thursday 12 alone, and the United States has recorded more than one million new cases in the past ten days, or more than any other country.
Despite the positive jobs report cited by Mitch McConnell, around a million people applied for unemployment insurance last week [dont 709’000 pour l’assurance chômage (UI) et 298’000 pour le Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) durant 39 semaines pour ceux qui n’ont pas accès à l’UI], more than throughout the Great Recession, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) [voir graphique de l’EPI en fin d’article]. Many workers exhaust their unemployment benefits as the pandemic drags on – the number of state claims fell by 436,000 last week – and federal emergency unemployment benefits will expire on December 26 without a move of Congress.
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Meanwhile, the economy has not recovered from the damage done earlier in the pandemic as the little support left from the initial aid package dwindles – and it is low-income households and households in color that suffer the most, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Almost 80 million adults – or about one in three – say they do not have enough money to cover basic expenses, such as food, rent and medical bills, among them 40% of households with children.
Nearly one in six tenants is behind on rent payments, including 26% of black families and 18% of Latino families, according to the Center’s analysis of federal data. Some federal protections for tenants are in place, but Democrats want a tougher moratorium on evictions passed with the stimulus package. Attempts to evict tenants by landlords have been reported across the country.
Nearly 24 million adults – 10.9% of the population – say their household sometimes or often hasn’t had enough to eat in the past week, according to data collected in mid-October. Between 8 and 14% of adults with children said their children sometimes or often did not have enough to eat. In comparison, last year, only 3.7% of adults reported that their household suffered from hunger in the whole of 2019.
Undernourishment rates are much higher among black and Latino households, where workers are more likely to work in low-wage industries and which have suffered massive job losses due to the pandemic. About 19% of black households and 18% of Latin American households reported not having had enough food to eat sometimes or often in the past seven days. In October, the Trump administration went to the Supreme Court to try to block emergency food aid (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) for the country’s poorest families.
Back on Capitol Hill, Thursday, November 12, Democrats and Republicans remained at a standstill regarding aid programs in the face of the pandemic. Democrats defend their revised $ 2.2 trillion proposal and attack Republicans for focusing on Trump’s efforts to overturn the election results. Mitch McConnell has said again that he wants Congress to pass a new stimulus package, but he continues to stand by his $ 500 billion offer. “I suppose that [Nancy Pelosi] and the Democratic leader in the Senate [Chuck Schumer] are always looking at something much bigger, ”he said. “This is not a direction I think we are ready to go.” (Article published on the website Truthout, November 13, 2020; editorial translation Against)
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[1] The Republicans have 50 senators and the Democrats 48. If the Democrats were to get their candidates elected in Georgia, they would achieve a 50/50 tie. In this case, it is up to the vice-presidency to decide in the case of tied votes. However, the vice-president-elect is Kamala Harris. (Red.)
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