Pelosi: I’m Not Willing to Negotiate on $600 Unemployment Benefit

On Monday’s broadcast of “CNN Newsroom,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) stated that she is not willing to negotiate on the $600 federal unemployment benefit amount during the current coronavirus economic relief package negotiations and that she wouldn’t support decreasing the federal unemployment benefit amount unless the unemployment rate goes down.

Host Jim Sciutto asked, “Steny Hoyer has said it’s not $600 or nothing for Democrats. I wonder if you agree. Are you willing to negotiate on that figure?”

Pelosi responded, “No. I think that the number, the $600 is related more to the unemployment rate. If the unemployment goes down, then that number can go down, but it doesn’t go down — you know, you’re not saying to the American people, we have more infections, we have more deaths, we have more unemployment, we have more hunger, and now we’re going to cut your benefit. That’s just not going to happen.”

Sciutto then asked Pelosi if she would support gradually phasing the size of the federal unemployment benefits down as the unemployment rate goes down. Pelosi responded that the idea is “something to talk about” at a different time, but at this time, there’s an economic “emergency.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett