At the end of July, the federal government’s expanded $600 weekly unemployment benefits were set to run dry. At the time, many hoped Congress would act swiftly to provide some sort of stopgap relief. It didn’t seem out of the question: Republicans seemed prepared to compromise on a much smaller weekly benefit supplement, somewhere in the range of $100 to $200.

But Congress failed to come to an agreement, and the expanded benefit expired without renewal.  Still, other CARES Act provisions kicked in for people who remained unemployed: Those who ran out the clock on state unemployment benefits, which usually max out at around six months, were eligible for a few more months of federally funded payments. And gig workers and people who left their jobs to care for family members sick with Covid-19 could collect unemployment checks, too.

Yet at the end of this year, barring action from Congress, those last programs are set to expire. A study released this week by the Century Foundation found that 7.3 million workers will lose their benefits as Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, the program that covers gig workers, winds down. An additional 4.6 million people will cease to receive payments via Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation, the program that extends payments beyond state-level cutoffs. By the end of the year, a total of 16 million people who received expanded unemployment benefits under the CARES Act will have lost that assistance. That number includes people who have already run through state benefits and added federal benefits.

“If they were to avoid serious human hardship and give the economy a boat, unemployment insurance is one of the highest bang-for-the-buck stimulus measures, because people spend it,” said Chad Stone, chief economist at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.

Read the full article about COVID relief funding by H. Claire Brown at The Counter.