About 3 million Americans — many of them right here in Butler County — awoke two days after Christmas without unemployment benefits.

President Donald Trump blindsided members of both parties with a demand for a larger dollar amount for COVID relief checks, imperiling not only a massive package of economic and public-health assistance but the basic functions of government itself.

The package, which included a $600 stimulus check for each American making less than $75,000 annually, passed with wide margins in the House and Senate and with the understanding that Trump supported it.

But the president wanted the amount of each check increased to $2,000. He waited until late Sunday night to sign it into law.

To add insult to injury, millions of Americans thought they’d become homeless this winter.

An eviction moratorium, which was issued by the CDC in September, was set to lapse Thursday. Trump on Sunday gave those desperate people a reprieve until Jan. 31.

This may be just a stop-gap measure.

Factors are still aligning to create a catastrophic situation here and across the country.

Millions of people are still losing jobs, COVID-19 is still spreading, and landlords who haven’t been paid in months are still ready to evict. This is a looming disaster that should disturb all Americans.

According to one estimate, 12 million renter households will owe an average of $5,000 in rent by the end of the year. A Census Bureau survey estimates that nearly 400,000 adults in Pennsylvania are either behind on rent or mortgages or have no confidence that they’ll be able to make payments in the coming weeks.

If an eviction moratorium is an “effective public health measure,” as the CDC states, Congress or the CDC needs to extend the moratorium beyond Jan. 31. Now.

It’s not that tenants aren’t trying to pay. The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia found a 70% increase in the number of people paying rent with a credit card — setting the stage for a future crisis in personal debt.

The CDC’s ban on evictions does have loopholes, and it hasn’t stopped some people from losing their homes. But moratoriums make a difference.

The persistent threat of evictions is no way to ring in a new year.

— JGG