(CNN)President Joe Biden signed two more executive orders on Friday — one focused on expanding food assistance and delivering stimulus checks to very low-income Americans, and the other on raising the minimum wage to $15 for the federal workforce — as he continues his swift efforts to overturn his predecessor’s policies.
(CNN)President Joe Biden signed two more executive orders on Friday — one focused on expanding food assistance and delivering stimulus checks to very low-income Americans, and the other on raising the minimum wage to $15 for the federal workforce — as he continues his swift efforts to overturn his predecessor’s policies.
The measures build on the President’s drive to aid struggling families with a $1.9 trillion relief plan that he outlined last week. The plan would send another $1,400 in additional stimulus checks, extend unemployment benefits and nutrition assistance and provide more help to renters and homeowners in need.
That more ambitious proposal would have to go through Congress, while the steps outlined in Friday’s orders don’t require legislation and can be put in place faster.
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In remarks before he signed, the President listed many of the financial troubles facing Americans, including that 1 in 7 households — more than 1 in 5 Black and Latino families — say they don’t have enough food to eat, 14 million Americans have fallen behind on their rent and 900,000 people filed for unemployment for the first time last week.
“This cannot be who we are as a country,” he said. “These are not the values of our nation. We cannot, will not let people go hungry. We cannot let people get evicted because of nothing they did themselves. We cannot watch people lose their jobs. We have to act.”
National Economic Council Director Brian Deese argued at a White House briefing earlier in the day that the right policy move is to continue expanding aid now, rather than waiting to see whether the $900 billion aid package that Congress passed last month is sufficient. Deese pointed to a Moody’s Analytics analysis that found that Biden’s relief plan would create 7.5 million jobs this year and return the country to full employment a year ahead of what is otherwise projected.
Helping families in need
The first of Friday’s executive orders calls for the Department of Agriculture to consider enhancing Pandemic-EBT benefits by 15%, which would give a family with three children more than $100 in additional support every two months. The program, part of the relief packages Congress passed last March, provides funds to low-income families whose children’s schools have closed to replace the free or reduced-price meals they would have received.
Also, the order directs the department to consider allowing states to boost food stamp benefits for about 12 million Americans who did not benefit from an earlier increase in emergency allotments included in the congressional relief packages. The order would bump up benefits for a family of four by 15% to 20% per month.
Food insecurity has ballooned during the pandemic amid massive job losses. The relief bill lawmakers passed in December increases the maximum benefit of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, as food stamps are formally known, by 15% through June. Biden’s relief measure would extend it through September.
Consumer advocates applauded Biden’s measures.
“The most effective way to ensure families with children have enough to eat is by providing them with the resources to purchase the food they need,” said Lisa Davis, senior vice president at Share Our Strength, which seeks to end hunger and poverty. “And, since these benefits are spent quickly at local grocery stores and markets, they also stimulate local economies.”
And the President is asking the agency to look into revising its Thrifty Food Plan, which is the basis for determining food stamp benefits, to better reflect the current cost of a healthy basic diet. The calculation was established in the 1970s, and advocates say it makes unrealistic assumptions about food affordability and availability, as well as about the time families have to shop and prepare meals.
In addition, Biden is directing the Treasury Department to consider taking a series of actions to reach the estimated 8 million people who may miss out on their stimulus payments because they don’t normally file taxes.
Most eligible adults received the money automatically. But very low-income people who don’t normally file tax returns have to register with the Internal Revenue Service so it knows how to reach them. The agency created an online tool to make this process easier and has made efforts to partner with local groups that work with homeless populations. Still, experts have said the government could be more aggressive in these efforts.
And the executive order directs the Department of Labor to consider clarifying that unemployed Americans can refuse to take jobs they fear will jeopardize their health and still qualify for unemployment benefits.
This has become an issue during the pandemic because some out-of-work people have been afraid to accept jobs that they think will expose them to the virus. States have varied in how they have handled these situations, with Republican-led states voicing concerns that enhanced unemployment benefits are enticing people to avoid returning to work.
