Hi everyone, this is Dr. Nitin Chhoda! In this follow-up video i'm going to go
into a lot more detail about the glaring problems with the $400
a week unemployment benefit extension - what you must know. I'm specifically going to
talk about why the $400 a week unemployment benefit
extension is not federal unemployment extension? It is
actually a completely separate program called the lost wages program that could
actually take months to implement. I'm going to go into a lot more detail.
I'm going to get into the fine print and give you all the stuff that's in
between the lines because I actually read the whole memorandum for my
subscribers. I spent many hours researching this late into
the night and here's what I found. So here's a fine print,
in order to get the funds, here's what the states have to do and i'm reading
from the memorandum and i'll link you to the memorandum in the description below.
The governor talking about the state governor who requests the funds, the
governor requests from the FEMA administrator, remember I talked about
the DRF program money from the federal government that
was set aside for hurricane relief with FEMA
is a part of that money is going to be reallocated about $44 billion
is going to be reallocated to pay for the lost wages program.
So the governor, meaning the state governor requests from the FEMA
administrator a grant, this is a grant, for lost wages
assistance pursuant to and then it mentions the sections
and agrees to the cost sharing requirement. Meaning 75%
federal government money from DRF, 25% money that the states already have from
the Cares Act which is money from, money within the CRF program.
By the way that money may have
already run out in your state. #2, the government administers a
delivery of financial assistance for lost wages
in conjunction with the state's unemployment insurance system. Again, keep
in mind this is language within the memorandum
on the White House website pertaining to the executive order that
the President signed. In exercising this authority the secretary acting through
the FEMA administrator shall subject to the limitations above
approve a lost wages assistance program that authorizes the governor
to provide a $400 payment per week which shall reflect a $300
a week federal contribution to eligible claimants from the week of
unemployment ending August 1st 2020. So in a sense, this is retroactive.
But again the wrong asking whether this retroactive is a wrong question to ask.
Because this money, A - could take months to get paid out because it's going to be
hard to set up a lost wages assistance program.
This money is going to run out in a few weeks and
there's probably there are probably going to be legal battles about this
money. This may just be a stop gap measure, a symbolic measure
until congress approves something because the power of the person and the
allocation of funds has to come from congress.
This is simply a reshuffling of money to create a new program
that could take months to implement. So it says here for purposes of this
memorandum the term eligible claimants, claimants means those who receive for
the week lost wages assistance is sort at least
$100 per week of any of the following benefits and
then it goes on to mention different state benefits.
With the regular $600 a week unemployment booster
individuals who are on unemployment got the booster but this sets up a further
stipulation that individuals who are getting at least $100 dollars per week
only they will get the $400 per week. So it sets up that stipulation
but more importantly the money is not going to last long and more importantly
this program could take months to implement i
there's a probability that a lot of individuals in many states
may never see this money because the states may not be able to agree to the
cost sharing requirement because they have no money
and also i covered this in the previous video there's language
within uh within the memorandum that basically says to the states hey
when the drf money from the federal government runs out which it will run
out 45 billion dollars is not a lot when you're talking about money that has
to be distributed to over 30 million individuals
when the money runs out states are basically told hey you're on your own
paid the money on your own so setting aside the retroactive benefit
setting aside um you know whether this is going to last
until december setting aside who's eligible
this program may never get off the ground in the state in which you live
now here are critics of the unemployment benefits uh proposal
not proposal executive order signed by the president
the michelle eva moore and i talked about michelle i believe she's the
leading unemployment benefits expert in the country she's a national
unemployment expert and she said this is outside the ui system entirely
it could take months for overwhelm states to design governors are being
ordered to work with the federal emergency
management agency that's fema in order to set up the benefit system
and distribute benefits along existing along with existing state
benefit systems so you're taking something that's
already overloaded with systems that were not even designed to pay out the
600 weekly unemployment benefits and if you
have been waiting to get unemployment paid if you have been waiting for your
600 week benefits if you've had a hard time
recertifying if there are delays in your payments you know that the state is
overloaded now what do you expect the state to do
twice the amount of work with with you know archaic technology and
with significantly reduced staff i mean it's not it's not realistic right
so um that is why i say that in a lot of states you might not even see
this money so president trump's one dollar weekly boost will not increase
benefits for jobless americans anytime soon according to an article on business
insider and i will link you to that article in the description below
now president trump did enact this uh this 400 week executive order like i
said but a closer look at the text of the
order reveals the administration is actually setting up a lost wages program
this is from business insider and um
basically i mentioned this earlier as funded with 45 billion dollars from
department of homeland security's uh disaster relief fund again governments
excuse me governors are being ordered to work with fema to manage the new
initiative now keep in mind fema has nothing to do with state
unemployment benefits now think about this again
fema is actually the agency responsible for handing out government relief
after natural disasters like hurricanes and wildfires so how do you expect
an agency that has no experience with unemployment benefits
to work with states who are completely overloaded
who by the way out of money to administer a program
where 75 of the money comes through drf disaster relief fund
from fema which is a federal which is a federal body
and 25 of the money comes from crf which is
essentially money that the states have from the cares act how do you actually
expect that to happen um it's it's it's not going to happen
it's like saying you know i mean i'm trying to come up with an
analogy it's like taking somebody who's a who's a mechanic
and somebody who essentially uh is out of money and saying hey
uh get together and i want you to build a house
okay the mechanics say oh i work on cars and the guy with no money says well i
i don't know i don't have any money to build the house i just came up with that
on the fly but you know exactly what i'm saying
so the government's help is conditional jobless benefits jobless people must
first qualify for their state aid and draw at least 100
per week to receive the federal benefits so again this is a new program
the state governments are being tasked to design from the ground up and again
michelle evermore said that this could take months to set up now this is
also going to set up new court challenges because it's a new benefit
program and during the press conference
president trump said he believes such challenges
his his words would go very rapidly through the course if we get sued
maybe we won't get sued that's what he said now this is what michelle evermore
said states have to follow federal law to
play to pay unemployment benefit uh insurance benefits and she said the
administration cannot call it fed cannot call it unemployment
insurance since it's a whole other program it's outside the u.s
system entirely it'll be difficult for states to carry out this program and
she said it could take months i mentioned that
and the funding mechanism is also going to draw a lot of concern
experts say that many states have already uh you know
tapped out most of the federal money in other words again i mentioned this
earlier your state may not have any crf money left i mean you can talk
to your state and see if they have any crf money left
uh chances are that there are many states that simply don't have the money
left now michael leakman vice president for state
fiscal policy at the center on budget and policy priorities
he said in a blog post and this is on business insider that many states like
california colorado mississippi had already
allocated all their money so california colorado
and mississippi had already used up all the crf money all the money that was
allocated to them through the uh through the through the cares act
others including south carolina kentucky and louisiana south carolina kentucky
and louisiana have already distributed significant
portions of it so they may not have the hundred dollars
to contribute so this creates another problem what if
the state doesn't have a hundred dollars to contribute
does that mean the federal government will still provide the 300 portion based
on the memorandum it doesn't look like it
because the memorandum requires that the governor agrees to contribute 100
how am i going to contribute 100 out of 400 when i don't even have that money
and if i don't have that money does that mean that the remaining 300 is also gone
these are questions that have not been answered and again this sets up
uh a very a very risky what is potentially a dangerous blame game where
states could get blamed governors could get blamed local senators could get
blamed so it is it is mentioned as early as
applying a band-aid to a bullet wound and it is um it is not a long-term
solution um getting a new benefit program off the
ground according to business insider would delay
to unemployment of unemployed americans struggling to make ends meet nearly 31
million individuals on unemployment and they're drawing state benefits of
approximately 330 dollars a week nationwide
um so now by the way as you might expect democrats have blasted president trump's
orders house speaker nancy pelosi and senate minority leader
chuck schumer said in a statement on saturday that the administration's moves
amounted to a little more than empty gestures here's what pelosi and
schumer said they said these policy announcements
provide little real help to families instead of passing a bill
now president trump is cutting families unemployment benefits and pushing states
further into budget crisis forcing them to make devastating cuts to
life or death services and by the way the democrats also
pointed out and i'll do another video about this about the
eviction extension of eviction they said that trump's housing plan provides no
assistance to help pay the rent i'll cover that
in a separate video that was it in this video i hope you learned something new
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