>> senate lawmakers are still in their weekly party many discussing the role begin at one plan dollar covid-19 80 plan unveiled yesterday and includes a second round of direct cash payments of $1200. it continues expanded on the plummet benefits started in the last plan but reducing the additional payments from $600

$600-$200 for the public and plan includes business owners tax credits and liability protections for, 19 issues. while we wait for issues to return to the floor a look at jobless benefits. >> director of economic policies for the bipartisan policies center here to talk about an appointment in the coronavirus pandemic. republicans yesterday evening unveiling a one chilean dollar coronavirus relief package and at the heart of the debate has been these enhanced federal autumn plummet benefits where congress passed back in march with extra $600 a week for republicans are now saying they need to reduce debt to around $200 a week. explain whoo was getting this enhanced federal benefits to begin with? >> sure, on appointment insurance was a program that is around any economic

circumstances in the united states but in the current pandemic, congress expanded the program significantly when the past the cares act this spring. cures act had about over $2 trillion in federal spending, a lot went to enhancing the unemployment insurance program. right now the program is covering all the people that it normally covers which is people who havee lost employment throuh no fault of their own but notably it does not cover people who have less on their own pollution, people their employers let go but in this time it is now covering people who need to either leave for some covid related reason, whether illness of their own, illness of a relative, care for children or the dependents at home or people who are in the gig economy or freelance workers so they expanded the group of people for whom an appointment insurance is covering and all those people are nowow receiving $600 in additional weekly benefits elected to what they

received before. >> i want to show our viewers with senate finance committee chuck grassley, republican of iowa, had to say yesterday about the justification for changing the current on appointment assistance formula. >> regardless of the boosted on appointment benefits is significantly more then democratic senate and democratic president approved in the 2009 economic crisis which, by the way, was only $25 a month addition when we had the worst recession in this country since the great depression of the 1930s so i am hearing people cry just a few minutes ago about our not doing enough. it does not make sense to do what we knew we were doing wrong but we had to do it to get help

out to the people who are unemployed when for the last four months we were paying out of the federal treasury $600 a month in addition to what each state would pay for those unemployed. >> senate, your reaction to the senator. >> sure, there is a lot to impact. the senator is correct that in the great recession congress passed the $25 a week to on a plummet insurance benefits. i think we are in a different situation today. we have now had tens of millions of people who are forced to stay home becausese of the pandemic d were not taking in any income from their employments. what that means -- it's even worse when the situation that we had in the great recession, on a planet rates are higher and certainly more people are having their wages cut or hours reduced

than they did at that time and what that means is i think we need a larger federal response. the senator proposal is larger than that so i think all parties need a more robust response during the great recession but the question now is how large of that addition onto weekly benefits be? the republicans came out with a quarter yesterday which would be $200 a week on top of standard on a plummet benefits and i should note though standard on a plummet benefits typically cover somewhere between a third and a half of people's prior wages so this is a $200 a week on top of that the democrats proposal is to put $600 a week on top of that. my guess is they will end up in between those two. i think it's important for us to recognize that if on the plummet benefits are far in excess of people's prior wages could have a disincentive effect towards him reentering the labor force laonce the recovery from the current economic fallout gets underway. >> if their employer, if an

employer says please return to work i can start paying you nowa and they employee refuses to do so, what happens to those benefits? >> technically if an employer calls an employee back they are required to go back to employment but there are some exceptions for right now people are allowed to stay on on appointment insurance if again they are caring for somebody who has covid or if they have covid or they are or dependents are at home and children the need to be cared for. in those cases those people can't return to work. in cases where there are not reasons like that the person is required to go back to their place of employment but there is not a whole lot of enforcement right now and people are genuinely scared in many cases because of their own personal health if they have pre-existing conditions from the virus and so there is a situation where it's

very atypical, not the standard situation where people would be going back to work if they have a job offer to them and they would be eager to do so for a variety of reasons they may not want to do so. i think we need a policy that continues to accommodate those ceextenuating circumstances. >> let's get to calls. margie in pennsylvania, republican. good morning. >> caller: good morning. well, as i or as you say, i am a republican so i think the $600 a week is just the democrats road to socialism. get everyone comfortable with more money but what i wanted to say was everybody is always saying that computers know everything about us and for heavens sakes, everyone is hacking into every other country's computer so surely there is a computer person out there that could just make up the difference between their unemployment and an extra little

bit so isn't there some kind of computer program that could do that? thank youe mper. >> guest: sure, thanks, margie. i think you're talking about the fact that this on a plummet insurance systems and i should note this is a federal state program so it's a partnership where the federal government hopes pay for some of the benefits and they set the general rules of the road but then each state has responsible for administering its own program for what that means is they are responsible also for the underlying operations and architecture. a lot of the estate systems are severely outdatedre and many are still running on a computer system known as cobalt which was developed 50, 60 years ago and are very few people out there who even know how to run those programs. these state agencies are not equipped to make very quick adjustments to their on a plummetst benefits. that is a problem that needs to be fixed but in this moment the

reason why congress has originally adopted the 600-dollar bump up as opposed to doing something that replaced a portion of people's wages which is how normal on a plummet insurance works is they weren't able to add an additional percentage onto the original percentages and they weren't able to set up a code that could adjust people on an individual basis relative to their prior wages so they did an across-the-board bump up and i think that is what likely is necessary this time around two because the state on a plummet agencies have again been in order to transition here is something that works on replacement rate basis for everyone and individual level and that would take months to put into place. >> host: wall street journal reports thatat states drew 16.32 billion from the federal government to pay the 600 enhanced benefits for the week that ended in july 11, labor d day. that would pay for 27-point to million 600-dollar payments but

the total likely include some back payments and the century foundation estimates 25 million workers are poised to lose the 600 supplement after july 31. what is the impact of this on the economy? >> guest: we do establish on appointment insurance has been a ughuge for the u.s. in terms of its response to this pandemic. in at least three ways, the first is for public health it has allowed, as you said, somewhere in 25-30 million people to stay home -- >> we take you live now back to the u.s. senate where work is excited to continue on judicial and exhibited confirmations as senators also continue negotiations on the revoke and one chilean dollar coronavirus response plan. life to the senate.