TREASURY Secretary Steven Mnuchin has claimed Americans could receive weekly unemployment benefits as soon as next week.
During a press conference Tuesday, Mnuchin said "within the next week or two, most of the states will be able to execute" the new unemployment payment system as detailed in President Donald Trump's executive order signed over the weekend.
This would deliver $400 checks – as opposed to the original $600 ones previously afforded to unemployed Americans under the CARES Act.
This comes a week after rumors surfaced saying Americans would have to wait a whole month to receive their Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA).
Others believed two weeks would have been the threshold for the federal government to give states funding.
However, states must make changes to their unemployment system – as the new stimulus package forces states to pay a quarter of the pandemic unemployment checks – which in itself could take weeks.
According to the White House, in order to prevent "fraud and abuse," those who qualify for the $400 checks must have received $100 in state unemployment insurance.
The benefits begin the week ending August 1, meaning they would be retroactive to the last day of the CARES Act's weekly $600 PUA.
The order will also allow states to access the Coronavirus Relief Fund (CRF), which currently contains around $80 billion that remains from the original $150 billion that the CARES Act allotted.
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However, states have wondered if the fund is enough to help them pay for the 25 percent requirement in which states foot the bill for unemployment checks.
During his morning briefings, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo spoke out in opposition. "We started with a $30 billion hole, and your solution [will] cost me another $4 billion? Thank you."
"That's handing the drowning man an anchor," he said. "Hold on to this."
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