Next Economic Stimulus Package Could Hit $1T

The Trump administration anticipates a $1 trillion figure could be in the cards for the next round of stimulus funding, with an eye toward possibly including back-to-work incentives, liability protections and more, Bloomberg reported.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reportedly told President Donald Trump to think in terms of a bill of up to $1 trillion. Trump and advisors floated a number of possibilities, including an infrastructure package, along with a payroll tax cut, tax deductions for companies’ workers’ restaurant and entertainment expenses, and maybe more.

Talks on the matter that had been scheduled for this week have been delayed, however, and McConnell said no action on additional stimulus measures will be taken before the two-week recess that begins July 3.

The government is under pressure to continue funneling financial aid into the economy, which has been devastated by the coronavirus pandemic that hit the U.S. in March.

Around 42 million Americans are unemployed, with 1.9 million filing for unemployment just in the past week. The total number is three times the number unemployed during the Great Depression, according to the Department of Labor. The states with the biggest increases in unemployed for the week ending May 23 included Maine with 11,941, Oklahoma with 10,274, Michigan with 7,859, Kentucky with 6,417 and Oregon with 4,913.

And recent analyses have the economy taking until 2030 to start fully recovering. The Congressional Budget Office has now projected that the economy will contract by almost $8 trillion within the next decade.

Democratic lawmakers have pushed for more individual stimulus payments and continuing funding for programs like the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), while Republicans have objected, instead saying they’d rather scale things back and focus on helping people return to work.

Congress passed a measure to change some parts of the PPP this week, including extending the amount of time businesses have to use the money from eight weeks to 24 weeks.

And McConnell signaled recently that a fourth and hopefully final financial aid package will be coming, although Republicans have been reticent on dealing with that issue, wanting instead to see how existing measures worked and how the trajectory of the coronavirus played out.