Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chair of the Progressive Caucus who voted against the Heroes Act last week, explained how her “paycheck recovery” legislation could better address the economic blow of the pandemic.
“What’s interesting in a pandemic is people are used to using the systems that we have,” Jayapal said on Hill.TV’s “Rising” Thursday. “I think the immediate response is let’s use the systems we have and not try to create something new.”
Jayapal’s bill builds off the relief legislation of other countries, such as the United Kingdom, where the government streamlines relief funds directly to businesses who in turn are legally obligated to keep paying their workers. The process does not involve banks and results in relatively steady employment numbers.
The congresswoman pointed out this was practiced on a smaller scale with the airline industry in the first coronavirus relief package.
“You don’t have banks picking winners or losers,” she said of the Paycheck Protection Program in the U.S.
“We know that PPP has been structurally a failure, though it had some good ideas in it, and we know that people of color in particular have a very tough time coming out of unemployment insurance and back to the workforce because of all the discrimination they face,” she said.
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