Once President-elect Joe Biden's economic relief plans receive a go signal from Congress, unemployment benefits could get a boost, more students may be able to return to class, and many low-wage workers could receive a raise.
Joe Biden's $1.9 Trillion Package
Biden announced on Thursday his $1.9 trillion package, which would be the next phase in relief dissemination meant to relieve the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has resulted in almost 400,000 deaths and left millions of Americans unemployed as the United States grapples with mitigating the novel coronavirus.
He rolled out the coronavirus relief plan that includes $1,400 stimulus payments for taxpayers who received earlier stimulus payments.
According to Biden from Wilmington, Del., on Thursday evening, "It's not hard to see we're in the middle of a once-in-several-generation economic crisis, within a once-in-several-generation public health crisis. A crisis of deep human suffering is in plain sight and there's no time to waste. We have to act and we have to act now," reported CPA Practice Advisor.
The president-elect is proposing the plan in order to provide financial assistance to individuals, expand COVID-19 vaccinations, and jump-start the economy. It would require congressional approval and is loaded with proposals on education, health care, cybersecurity, and labor.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) may be trying to tie a bow around the second stimulus checks and everything else that arrived with December's stimulus bill. This is just in time for conversation around a 2021 stimulus package to take root. Biden's announcement was simultaneous with the Labor Department reporting almost a million new jobless claims, the highest record since last summer, reported CNET.
Biden called the package "American Rescue Plan" that aims to offer over $1 trillion in direct aid to US citizens and $440 billion as financial assistance to businesses. He stated it would be the first step in a two-part response: first, the rescue plan, and second, a recovery plan to help revamp the United States, reported Forbes.
Some of the items on Biden's proposal involve a third round of stimulus payments worth $1,400, tax credits for families with children, a federal minimum wage hike to $15, and more eviction protections.
The president-elect will ask Congress to pass his "American Rescue Plan" at a time when American health care workers are racing to vaccinate the public due to the pandemic that has cost 22.2 million jobs and put the majority of Americans out of work since the Great Depression.
Biden, who will be inducted as the 46th president of the United States on Wednesday, has pledged to make his economic and pandemic relief package at the top of his priorities. He vowed to get $2,000 in stimulus payments to Americans in December 2020 when President Donald Trump signed a smaller economic relief package transferring $600 checks to most households.
The proposal also includes $350 billion in state and local government aid, extending the eviction and foreclosure moratoriums until the end of September, $50 billion toward Covid-19 testing, and $170 billion for K-12 schools and institutions of higher education.
