President Joe Biden
With his popular, nearly $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan about to be adopted, President Biden nears a big substantive and political win. Today, the House of Representatives is likely to pass the mildly tweaked version of this comprehensive pandemic and economic recovery legislation, which cleared the Senate on Saturday in a party-line vote, paving the way for the president to sign it into law and to meet his declared goal of gaining passage before federal supplementary unemployment benefits were set to expire on March 14.
The American Rescue Plan is designed to inject direct stimulus into an economy that is still down 10 million jobs due to the economic impacts of COVID-19, provide a safety net for individuals and families that continue to struggle, aid states and localities who because they are required to balance their budgets would otherwise have to implement widespread lay-offs. and accelerate vaccine distribution and school re-opening. Among its specific provisions: extending federal unemployment benefits of $300 a week through the beginning of September; temporarily increasing child tax credits, which along with other measures in the legislation will cut childhood poverty in half; making direct one-time individual payments of $1,400 to individuals earning $75,000 or under; and providing $350 billion dollars in aid to state, local and tribal governments, $130 billion to schools and $14 billion for enhanced vaccine distribution.