Yesterday’s Executive Order (EO) to extend supplemental unemployment benefits would require states to come up with $100/week from already allocated Coronavirus Relief Funds to match the Federal Government’s $300/week supplement (which will come from FEMA Disaster Relief Fund, or DRF):

            “I am hereby directing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to assist in providing benefits from the DRF, and am calling upon the States to use their CRF (the $150 billion Coronavirus Relief Fund) allocation, to bring continued financial relief to Americans who are suffering from unemployment due to the COVID-19 outbreak.”

            “I am directing up to $44 billion from the DRF at the statutorily mandated 75 percent Federal cost share be made available for lost wages assistance to eligible claimants, to supplement State expenditures in providing these payments…. I am calling on States to use amounts allocated to them out of the CRF, or other state funding, to provide temporary enhanced financial support….States should also identify funds to be spend without a Federal match should the total DRF balance deplete to $25 billion.” (emphasis added)

This federal funding would only happen under the Stafford Act and the president’s emergency declaration:

            “…if the governor requests lost wages assistance and agrees to administer delivery and provide adequate oversight of the program….”

            “  the Governor requests from the FEMA Administrator a grant for lost wages assistance….and agrees to the cost-sharing requirement” (again, emphasis added)

            “  the Governor administers delivery…”

The federal program terminates December 6, 2020 or when the DRF depleted to $25 billion, whichever is sooner.       

Mind you, the assertion that there are unspent funds in the CRF that could be repurposed for a state unemployment match hinges on a recent, faulty analysis by the Department of the Treasury.  The analysis covered the period ending June 30, before those states that had opened early experienced a surge in COVID-19 cases and reinstated stay-at-home orders and closings.  You can see the response by seven bi-partisan state and local organizations to this report here, along with numerous links to data on how they are spending their CRF funding. 

The EO related to evictions is a directive to the “Secretary of Health and Human Services and Director of CDC to consider whether halting residential evictions for failure to pay rent are reasonably necessary to prevent the further spread of COVID-19 from one State or possession into any other State or possession” and that “The Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of HUD shall identify any and all available Federal funds to provide temporary financial assistance…”

The President signed two Memoranda, one to defer student loan payments (“a temporary cessation of payments and the waiver of all interest on student loans held by the Department of Education until December 31, 2020”).   The other to defer payroll taxes paid from September 1, 2020, through December 31, 2020 for those paid less than $104,000.  It also directs the Secretary of the Treasury to explore permanent elimination of this obligation.  (In his oral presentation the president indicated, if he is re-elected, he would make the payroll deferral permanent. Otherwise, the taxes deferred would have to be repaid.)