‘Silent crisis’ looms as US to end Covid aid for millions of jobless

Spending less money on food is a good thing. Savings for retirement are being depleted. Completely abandoning the workforce.

As Covid-19 broke out last year, the US dramatically increased jobless aid. However, those benefits will expire in the coming days, forcing millions of jobless Americans — some of whom haven’t worked since the outbreak began — to face difficult decisions about how to make ends meet in an economy now threatened by the Delta version.

Deborah Lee, an unemployed phlebotomist in Arizona recovering from a Covid outbreak that afflicted her daughter and two of her three granddaughters, stated, “I have no idea how we would survive only on my daughter’s wages.”

Last year, government-funded programs that increased weekly payouts and provided assistance to the long-term unemployed and freelancers were credited with preserving the US economy from collapsing much more.

They’ve grown contentious in recent months, with several states terminating them early, claiming that they pushed individuals not to return to professions that Covid-19 vaccines rendered safe, despite studies contradicting that claim.

They will cease statewide on September 6, and while experts do not expect them to have a significant impact on the US economy’s recovery from the 2020 disaster, they will surely increase the strain on the unemployed.

“I believe it will be an unappreciated economic event,” said Andrew Stettner of the progressive think tank The Century Foundation, who estimates that 7.5 million people will be dependent on the programs when they expire.

“It’ll be a very quiet crisis.”

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