Trump Orders More Unemployment Pay, A Payroll Tax Deferral

BEDMINSTER, N.J. (AP) — President Donald Trump is bypassing the nation’s elected lawmakers as he claims the authority to defer payroll taxes and extend an expired unemployment benefit.

Trump signed several executive orders at his New Jersey golf club on Saturday after negotiations with Congress on a new coronavirus rescue package collapsed.

Trump moved to continue paying a supplemental federal unemployment benefit for millions of Americans out of work during the outbreak.

Congress allowed those payments to lapse on Aug. 1, and negotiations to extend them have been mired in partisan gridlock, with the White House and Democrats miles apart.

Weekly unemployment benefits will now be $400 a week.