The Trump administration is considering offering people a $450-a-week payment to persuade them to return to work amid the coronavirus pandemic, a White House adviser has said.

Plans to offer the payment for a limited time on top of wages is gathering steam among Republicans in the US Congress.

They want it to replace the $600 weekly supplemental unemployment benefit that expires on 31 July, which Democrats want to extend.

“It’s something we’re looking at very carefully,” said White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow.

The director of the National Economic Council told Fox News that he believed the policy, being pushed by Senator Rob Portman of Ohio, would remove a “major disincentive” to resume employment.

“Senator Portman has a good idea,” he said.

“He understands incentives and disincentives. The trouble with the $600 plus-up, and maybe we needed it in that emergency period, but frankly it’s a major disincentive to go back to work and we don’t want that.

“We want people to go back to work.

“I frankly do not believe the $600 plus-up will survive the next round of talks, but I think we’ll have substitutes to deal with that issue.”

It comes as Congress, which is deadlocked over the country’s next big coronavirus relief bill, shifts its attention to a more modest overhaul of small-business aid.

It is hoped the measures could help employers reopen shops and survive the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is expected bipartisan legislation that would give small employers more time to take advantage of federal subsidies for payroll and other costs will pass the House this week.

But as politicians return to Washington for an abbreviated two-day session, formal talks between congressional leaders on the next phase of the federal coronavirus response are conspicuous by their absence from the agenda.

Democrats have already pushed a $3trillion-plus measure through the House, but negotiations with the Republican-controlled Senate and White House have not yet begun.

In one of his first public appearances in his home state of Kentucky since mid-March because of the pandemic, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said: “We can’t keep propping up the economy forever.

“The ultimate solution is to begin to get back to normal. There are three things that are essential to have full normalcy – testing, treatment and vaccine.”

The US has had almost 1.7 million confirmed COVID-19 cases and more than 98,000 deaths among people with the virus, with both figures higher than in any other country in the world.

Source: Read Full Article