U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the top Senate Democrat, Chuck Schumer, shut down the idea of passing a temporary extension of expanded unemployment benefits separate from a larger coronavirus relief package, telling reporters on Thursday that they do not want to pass measures piecemeal.
“This is a package. We cannot piecemeal this,” Pelosi, the top Democratic lawmaker in Congress, said when asked about temporarily extending benefits meant to help alleviate economic pain caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
Schumer said lawmakers would not “take care of one portion of suffering people and leave everyone else hanging.”
(Reporting by Lisa Lambert and Susan Cornwell; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)