Statement from Vice President Joe Biden on Record Number of Americans Filing for Unemployment [View all]

The economic damage from the worst public health crisis our country has faced in generations is both rising and deepening at an alarming rate. It is putting working families and the American middle class through unimaginable financial pain — and they need to be made whole as fast as possible. My heart goes out to the millions of Americans who filed for unemployment claims this week, and the millions more who worry what next week holds for them.

Donald Trump is not responsible for the coronavirus, but he is responsible for failing to prepare our nation: for the months during which he continually neglected dire warnings from experts and downplayed the threat to us, and for the erratic and unacceptably slow federal response that has tragically lagged behind other countries. Now we have more coronavirus cases than anywhere in the world, and that is dealing body-blows to our economy and to the welfare and well-being of millions upon millions of Americans.

Just last week, Donald Trump’s Treasury Secretary referred to these kinds of job losses as “not relevant” — but try telling that to any one of the millions of Americans who are now out of work because of this crisis.

The economic devastation that families all across this country are experiencing by no fault of their own means. We have to take extraordinary steps to protect them. We need to get unemployment checks to the workers filing claims, so they are made financially whole. No blame games or finger-points — the President has to take responsibility for helping the states make that happen. We still need to keep as many workers on payroll as possible, and as many small businesses in business. And we need to get the direct cash relief into Americans’ bank accounts without delay. The bills are piling up.

And we have to guarantee that Americans without health care coverage can get it. The President must change course and allow open enrollment in the Affordable Care Act, as even Republican governors have called on him to do. He should also drop his support for a lawsuit that would undo the ACA, because it would cost almost 20 million Americans their care — the last thing we should pursue during a public health emergency.



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