LOS ANGELES (AP) — As public health officials warned Friday that the coronavirus posed new risks to parts of the Midwest and South, enhanced federal payments that helped avert financial ruin for millions of unemployed Americans were set to expire — leaving only threadbare safety nets offered by individual states to catch them.
Since early in the pandemic, the federal government has added $600 to the weekly unemployment checks that states send. That increase ends this week, and with Congress still haggling over next steps, most states will not be able to offer nearly as much.
The extra federal aid helped keep Wally Wendt and his family afloat.
