Trump's hesitation on relief bill will delay aid payments

WASHINGTON (AP) — The $900 billion economic relief package that President Donald Trump signed over the weekend will deliver vital aid to millions of struggling households and businesses. Yet his nearly one-week delay in signing the bill means that it will take that much longer for the financial support to arrive.

The package that Trump signed at his private club in Florida on Sunday will extend two unemployment benefit programs providing aid to 14 million people that expired last week. It will also provide small business loans and up to $600 in cash payments to most individuals. In addition, it extends a moratorium on evictions for one month. The measure does not include aid for states and localities that are being forced to turn to layoffs and service cuts as their tax revenue dries up — a potential long-run drag on the economy.

The legislation extends the two federal jobless aid programs until mid-March and adds a $300 supplemental weekly payment. But because Trump signed the bill on Sunday, a day after the two programs lapsed, that could cost the unemployed a week of benefits, with payments not restarting until next week.

“The date was really unfortunate,” said Michele Evermore, a senior policy analyst at the National Employment Law Project, a workers' advocacy group. “Now there's some question as to when this gets paid out.”

It is possible that the Labor Department will interpret the law to allow payments for the week ending Jan. 2, Evermore said. But if the bill had been signed Saturday, payments clearly could have restarted this week.

And it will likely take two to three weeks for states to update their computer systems to resume the aid programs and pay out the extra $300, Evermore said, a process that could have started earlier, after Congress first approved the bill about a week ago.

The delay...