US lawmakers will unlikely reach a deal this week on a new $1 trillion COVID-19 relief package, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Tuesday
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 05th August, 2020) US lawmakers will unlikely reach a deal this week on a new $1 trillion COVID-19 relief package, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Tuesday.
"The longer this goes, the more likely it is to be a smaller deal," Pelosi was quoted saying on Fox news. "I don't think there will be a deal this week."
Passage of the new $1 trillion COVID-19 relief bill was being held up by brawling between House Democrats and Republican Senators on whether weekly benefits for the unemployed should be at $600 a person or cut to a third as the Trump administration hopes, Pelosi said.
That $600 weekly unemployment benefit expired last week. Without an extension, some 17 million Americans rendered jobless since March by the COVID-19 pandemic will be left without government assistance from this week onward.
The Trump administration hopes to cut the weekly benefit to $200, saying what jobless Americans have received so far is so "generous" to the extent it was discouraging many from returning to work, even with businesses having reopened from lockdowns forced by the pandemic.
A strong economic rebound from the COVID-19, which requires getting as many Americans back to work as possible, is seen as key to Trump's bid for reelection in November.
