Fourth Stimulus Check Update: Biden Administration Not Giving New Payments Despite Disappointing Jobs Numbers

The September Jobs report was far less exciting than many had hoped, reporting that of 500,000 newly projected jobs, only 194,000 were added. However, despite that setback to the Biden Administration’s otherwise stronger economic recovery numbers from the Pandemic, Americans shouldn’t expect that more financial assistance will come their way—in either the form of new unemployment benefits or a fourth federal stimulus check.

Despite the disappointing numbers, unemployment still fell from 5.2% to 4.8%, a better number than the expected 5.1% unemployment rate. As a result, the Administration doesn’t have any intentions of bringing back since-expired economic assistance programs, Speaking to Business Insider, Labor Secretary Marty Walsh said that ending the $300 weekly unemployment benefits didn’t have a huge impact on getting people back into the workforce, and considering the way the economy has gone, the enhanced benefits are no longer needed.

“We’re heading in the right direction,” he said. “The unemployment benefit was there because in the beginning tens of millions of Americans were out of work overnight.”

“When the president filed the American Rescue Plan at the beginning of his presidency, there was still high unemployment rates and still the need to support people because there really hadn’t been a path forward,” Walsh added. “The past administration didn’t have an economic recovery plan, didn’t have a plan to bring America back to work. And President Biden laid that out very clearly.”

In addition to unemployment benefits, stimulus checks are also likely off the table—despite growing calls for some form of economic relief, with studies showing that previous stimulus checks not only caused the supplemental poverty rate to decline from 11.8% to 9.1% but that they also decreased financial instability by 43% and led to a 42% decrease in household food shortages as well.

However, while federal payments aren’t necessarily coming, ones from local governments continue to come into play. The most recent programs to be pitched are ones in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and Chicago, which are considering giving needy families $500 a month for a three-year period. In Nassau County in New York, County executive Laura Curran also just signed into law a bill which would give residents making up to $168,900 a year who receive Enhanced STAR or have limited incomes, disabilities or senior citizen property tax exemptions, a $375 payment.