The congresswoman declared the bill Tuesday evening during a virtual town hall event. Her announcement comes as three federal aid programs died last week that was put in place during the onset of the pandemic.
"I’ve been very disappointed on both sides of the aisle that we’ve just allowed pandemic unemployment assistance to completely lapse when we are clearly not fully recovered from the cost effects of the pandemic," Ocasio-Cortez said. "I simply just could not allow this to happen without at least trying."
"I’m not entirely sure the prospects of it, and I want to be completely honest with you all on that," she added. "We will work it, we will try, but I simply just could not allow us to let this happen without at least trying."
The three federal assistance plans, Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, or PUA, Federal Pandemic Unemployment Compensation, or FPUC, and Pandemic Extended Unemployment Compensation, or PEUC, were skipped off as of Sept. 6, a report by the Century Foundation published.
The programs offered employees an extra $300 per week in addition to state aid, expanded worker fitness to receive benefits, and extended the duration of benefits for those who were still without jobs.
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"Under current legislation, FPUC, PEUC, and PUA benefits can be paid through the week ending September 5, 2021, but after that, all of this federal assistance will be cut off on September 6, with no grace period," the report says.
Ocasio-Cortez's legislation would extend the benefits programs from the Sept. 6 cutoff to Feb. 1, 2022, including retroactive payments for those who lost access to benefits earlier, Fox Business reports.
President Joe Biden previously remarked that he thinks it was suitable for the benefits programs to end as scheduled in September.
Many GOP lawmakers and business owners have accused the weekly booster, which in some cases pays receivers more in funds than their previous wages, for disincentivizing people from taking new jobs, even as the number of openings has surpassed the number of people looking for work in recent months.
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Several studies have shown jobless benefits have had a minimal impact on hiring, and that concerns over the virus and ongoing child-care oppositions remain top issues for workers evaluating their job prospects amid the health crisis.
Most of the workers who got pandemic support do not fit for traditional jobless bonuses from their state. Advocates have stressed that workers supported by expired pandemic programs are also disproportionately Black, Hispanic, Asian, women and low-income earners.
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