As 2020’s record-setting hurricane season enters its most active phase, President Donald Trump wants to take billions of dollars away from hurricane-related disaster relief to provide expanded unemployment benefits due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last weekend, Trump announced a series of executive orders after congressional leaders and the White House could not agree to another coronavirus relief bill that would have likely expanded federal unemployment benefits.
One of the orders would allow the president to take up to $44 billion in disaster relief funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to pay for COVID-related unemployment claims. The order would leave $25 billion in FEMA’s disaster relief fund if all the unemployment money is spent, down from the $68.4 billion that is currently in the fund as of July 31.
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