WASHINGTON — As people across Florida search for jobs that’ll help them get back on their feet, the money aimed at holding them over is being sliced.
”I’m desperately looking for a job. There’s nothing out there,” said Sherry Haper, who has been getting unemployment since March.
The US Senate says it’s willing to pass out $200 a week to the millions of jobless Americans across the nation as part of the Heroes Action which is essentially the second version of the CARES act. It’s a sharp difference from the $600 that ended last week.
“$200 a week? No. There’s no way,” Haper said. “We purchase things, we set ourselves up based on our income and if we’re not even close to that income we’re falling apart, we’re gonna lose everything."
But the Senate is hesitant on extending the $600 benefit until the end of the year as the House proposed out of fear folks are receiving more money than they would if they were back to work.
Sherry Haper says she and so many others are falling behind on bills.
“They’ll never catch up and if they do it will be from a cardboard box under a bridge,” she said.
US Senators were throwing around the idea of basing the weekly federal benefit off the percentage of a person’s previous salary — something Ryan Barack, a labor and employment expert, says leads to even more questions.
“Is there is a maximum earning amount that is applied, how they’re going to apply that?” Barack asked. “Is there going to be a floor where no one is going to drop below a certain number?”
Something that’s new on CONNECT is the ability to check on your federal payments. It’s a feature coming the week after federal benefits ended.
The Florida DEO says it’s watching discussions in Congress closely and plans to get Floridians paid as quickly as possible no matter the outcome.
