Just 2 states are distributing Trump’s promised unemployment supplements

In economic news, just two U.S. states have begun distributing a $300-per-week federal supplement to weekly unemployment benefits — even though Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin promised on August 10 that “most states” would have the program up and running within two weeks. President Trump set up the makeshift $44 billion program by executive order after Republican lawmakers allowed enhanced unemployment benefits to expire one month ago.

Meanwhile, a federal moratorium on evictions expired Monday ahead of September 1, when rent and mortgage payments come due for 30 million Americans left unemployed during the pandemic. Princeton University’s Eviction Lab estimates up to 40 million people are now at risk of eviction in the coming months.

A new national survey finds one in five small business owners expect to close if economic conditions don’t improve in the next six months. And a study by the Economic Policy Institute finds some 12 million Americans have lost their employer-based health insurance since the start of the pandemic.