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For more than two months, the Heroes Act, the next COVID-19 economic relief package, has sat on U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell’s desk, without even a debate. Now the Senate leader and our own Sen. Pat Toomey have put forward a plan that falls $2 trillion short and 73 days late.
Toomey has ignored calls for help for weeks from Pennsylvania communities in need of crucial funding. Now, he and McConnell have unveiled an inadequate plan that fails to address the needs of Pennsylvanians; to call this bill half-hearted would give it too much credit.
The virus continues to spread rapidly around parts of the country, and workers face even more economic calamity with the end of the $600 unemployment benefit provided by the CARES Act. This additional stipend, set to expire in days, has been a lifeline for Pennsylvania families. Nearly 3.5 million Pennsylvanians were receiving Pandemic Unemployment Assistance this month. As food insecurity and child hunger continue to rise, this stipend has given families the ability to afford groceries and prescriptions, pay for their rent or mortgage, or make their car payment.
Toomey has been skeptical of “loading the money cannon” for further pandemic relief for months, while a staggering number of Americans continue to file for unemployment. No one wants to be unemployed, and today, millions are out of work through no fault of their own.
Unless the Senate passes the Heroes Act, which proposes a comprehensive plan continuing these much-needed stipends into January, Pennsylvanians will needlessly suffer. Without the Heroes Act, recovery will take longer, and the road back to normal will be harder. We cannot overstate the importance of this legislation.
Toomey and all his colleagues in the Congress must do better than offer shoddy alternatives. Washington must pass the Heroes Act.
Rick Bloomingdale
President, Pennsylvania AFL-CIO