“Now there is heightened anxiety, even within the White House, that pulling so many people off government support so abruptly could push millions of people into poverty and cut off access to food or nutrition for people caught on the wrong side of this uneven economy. The jobless rate has fallen and the stock market is near record levels, but many Americans have found themselves unable to recover from the pandemic’s devastating blow.

‘I’m predicting a silent type of pain,’ said Andrew Stettner, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation think tank and an expert on unemployment insurance, who has estimated that some 7.5 million people will be cut off from aid on the programs’ expiration date. ‘If past periods have been an indicator, many will be caught in a spiral that will lead to a downward quality of life.'”