There’s an unemployment cliff coming. More than 7.5 million may fall off

PUBLISHED SUN, AUG 1 2021 •8:30 AM EDT 

UPDATED MON, AUG 2 2021 •9:58 AM EDT 

Federal unemployment programs that have paid jobless benefits since March 2020 are poised to end Sept. 6. It doesn't appear Congress will extend them again. Roughly 7.5 million people will lose benefits entirely at that time, per one estimate. Those eligible to collect state unemployment insurance may continue to receive weekly payments past Labor Day. They would get $300 less per week. 

Who's impacted? 

Millions of jobless Americans are poised to lose Covid-era income support in about a month's time. This impending "benefits cliff" appears different from others that loomed this past year, when Congress was able to keep aid flowing after eleventh-hour legislative deals. There doesn't seem to be an urgency among federal lawmakers to extend pandemic benefit programs past Labor Day, their official cutoff date. "There's almost nobody talking about extending the benefits," said Andrew Stettner, a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, a progressive think tank. 

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The cliff will impact Americans who are receiving benefits through a handful of temporary programs. They include aid for the long-term unemployed, as well as the self-employed, gig workers, freelancers and others who are generally ineligible for state benefits. More than 9 million people were receiving such assistance as of July 10, according to the Labor Department.

About 7.5 million will still be collecting benefits by the time they end Sept. 6, Stettner estimates. They'd lose their entitlement to any benefits at that time. Others who are eligible for traditional state unemployment insurance can continue to receive those weekly payments past Labor Day. Roughly 3 million people are currently getting regular state benefits. However, they'll lose a $300 weekly supplement. The average person would have gotten $341 a week without that supplement in June, according to Labor Department data. (Payments range widely among states — from $177 a week in Louisiana to $504 a week in Massachusetts, on average.) .