Nancy Pelosi, Steven Mnuchin Say New Round Of Stimulus Talks To Begin Soon

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have agreed to open talks on the next round of coronavirus stimulus spending, Mnuchin said Thursday. The talks broke off Aug. 7 leaving millions of Americans struggling with the aftereffects of pandemic lockdowns.

Mnuchin, testifying before the Senate Banking Committee, said he and Pelosi had agreed to resume talks as they met on the continuing resolution to keep the federal government running when the fiscal 2021 budget year begins next Thursday.

Pelosi told reporters at the Capitol she expects the talks to begin “soon.”

Mnuchin told lawmakers he still is confident the economy is recovering quickly, but a “targeted” relief package still is needed.

“The president and I remain committed to providing support for American workers and businesses. We continue to try to work with Congress on a bipartisan basis to pass a phase 4 relief package,” Mnuchin said in prepared remarks.

“The administration is ready to reach a bipartisan agreement,” he added.

The White House and House Democrats are at odds over the size of any relief package. House Democrats adopted a $3.4 trillion measure in May, but Pelosi has since said she is willing to drop the price tag to $2.2 trillion. Republicans, however, have expressed an unwillingness to go much above $1 trillion.

More than a dozen Senate Republicans have said they are not inclined to support a new round of stimulus spending.

The stalemate has left millions of Americans who lost their jobs as a result of the pandemic in limbo. In the first waves of relief, the government provided $600 a week in supplemental jobless benefits, but that relief expired July 31. Twenty-two states already have depleted their allocation of $300 a week in supplemental benefits President Donald Trump provided through executive order.

Initial unemployment claims are still running high. Last week, 870,000 Americans applied for jobless benefits for the first time, up 4,000 from the preceding week.

“It will take months of jobs recovery before there will be enough jobs in the economy to reattach the 25.5 million workers who have been temporarily or permanently displaced by pandemic and who remain on unemployment,” unemployment expert Andrew Stettner, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation, told International Business Times.

“Indeed, only faster progress against the virus itself will assuage the unemployment struggles of so many workers in fields like entertainment who can’t return to their jobs until social distancing restrictions are relaxed.”