Biden's New COVID Stimulus Benefit Proceeds To Children

President-Elect Biden Introduces Members Of His Incoming Economic Team
Getty Images: Chip Somodevilla / Staff

President-elect Biden's new covid stimulus plan is expected to include a significant unique benefit for children in low and middle-class households.

Part of a relief package is $2,000 covid stimulus plan grants, unemployment benefits, and other aid for the ailing economy and funding to combat the coronavirus pandemic and improve vaccine delivery. Biden officials are likely to include the extension of an existing tax credit for children. Biden is scheduled for Thursday to unveil his plan officially.

"It'll be in the trillions of dollars he," Mr. Biden said Friday, arguing that the long-term economic damage from the shutdowns will be reduced by more spending sooner." The Labor Department reported earlier that day that job growth had slowed in December. The U.S. economy had lost more than nine million jobs in 2020, the worst historical output in the labor market dating from 1939. The first widespread pandemic relief program, implemented in March by Congress, cost around $2 trillion.

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President-elect Biden and Democratic congressional leaders have consistently supported direct payments of $2,000 to most Americans, finding the December bill's $600 checks inadequate. The Biden plan will likely add $1,400 to the earlier charges to hit the overall stimulus grant.

On Thursday, President-elect Joe Biden will unveil his long-awaited covid stimulus plan. Those familiar with legislation say that the transition team hopes to attract bipartisan support in Congress for the bill.

Several Democratic goals are likely to be included in the plan, including raising the newly approved direct grants of $600 to most Americans, expanding unemployment benefits, and funding for state and local governments.

While some had at first wondered whether Biden might attempt to ram the covid stimulus plan through Congress using a specific budgetary rule. A rule that could allow it to pass with only Democratic votes, a person familiar with the transition team's thinking reported that the president-elect is interested in drumming up bipartisan support.

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Although the current price tag of the covid stimulus plan is not yet definitively established. It includes an extension of unemployment benefits, an expansion of the child tax credit, aid to local and state governments, a boost to small businesses, support for the provision of vaccinations and schools, and the third round of stimulus restrictions.

The GOP-controlled Senate and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had formerly been the most significant barrier to passing larger direct payments.

For months, the president-elect has said passing a covid stimulus plan and helping Americans through recent economic difficulties would be his No. 1 goal as he takes the oath of office on January 20.

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But when will this payment of $2,000 become a reality? Possibly at the earliest of early February. Before new senators take their seats, the results in Georgia will first need to be certified. Republicans are supposed to appeal to specific outcomes. January 22 is the deadline for the certification of reports.

Biden's interest in securing bipartisan support for his covid stimulus plan could also be a good-faith move to promote compromise. That would inevitably result in a 50-50 Senate after two runoff elections in Georgia gave Democrats two extra chamber seats.

The president-elect can also hope that the cooperative posture would allow Senate lawmakers to distinguish haggling from Trump's possible impeachment trial and the more routine procedure of confirming Cabinet nominees over the Covid stimulus plan legislation.

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