Seven Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee urged President Joe Biden to include recurring direct stimulus payments and unemployment benefits tied to economic conditions in his American Families Plan.
An increasing number of Democrats have pushed for recurring payments to ensure the economic recovery continues. Last week, seven more Democrats joined the cause.
The Democrats’ request, led by Rep. Jimmy Gomez of California, was made through a letter that cited a poll from April that found that six in 10 adults said the latest round of stimulus checks would last them less than three months.
The #COVID19 pandemic has proven Americans can’t wait for relief when economic crises hit.
Today, I led my @WaysMeansCmte colleagues in calling on @POTUS to include automatic #StimulusChecks and unemployment benefits tied to economic conditions in his #AmericanFamiliesPlan ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/tsFhI3QDk2
— Rep. Jimmy Gomez (@RepJimmyGomez) May 18, 2021
“The pandemic has served as a stark reminder that families and workers need certainty in a crisis,” the Democrats wrote. “They deserve to know they can put food on the table and keep a roof over their heads. They should not be at the mercy of constantly shifting legislative timelines and ad hoc solutions.”
The progressive group added that jobless aid and stimulus payments “work in tandem”: While unemployment benefits replace lost income from work, stimulus checks are “crucial for supporting struggling families that fall out of its reach.”
Checks should be recurring
According to the Business Insider, a recent report from the Economic Security Project found that sending two more rounds of stimulus checks could keep 12 million more Americans out of poverty. On April 23, Insider reported that Democrats and Americans increasingly think that stimulus checks should be recurring.
You can read: Tom Wolf renews Pennsylvania COVID-19 Disaster Declaration
House Democrats have long wanted to go beyond the $1,200 checks included in the CARES Act. Last May, Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Kamala Harris of California released a plan to give Americans $2,000 monthly checks for the duration of the pandemic.
Harris told MSNBC in July: “Through the course of this pandemic and crisis, we need to give people $2,000 a month as recurrent payments, people below a certain income level, to help them and sustain them through these months of crisis so that at the end of it they can get back up on their feet instead of having fallen deep, deep, deep into the crevices of this crisis.”
Meanwhile, President Biden is negotiating with Republicans on the size of his infrastructure package and has not commented on including recurring payments in his plan.
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