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$1,400 checks and vaccine funds: what the US Covid relief bill contains
The US House on Wednesday passed the huge $1.9tn coronavirus relief and economic stimulus package that represents Joe Biden’s first major legislative victory.The massive legislation, a broadly popular bill with the public, received no Republican support. It aims to fulfill Democrats’ campaign promise to combat the coronavirus and revive a pummeled economy. It also includes sweeping anti-poverty measures that attempt to tackle deep-seated racial and gender inequalities in the American economy.Here are the main elements of the bill:$1,400 stimulus checks: A majority of Americans – as many as 85% of US households, according to Democrats – will receive direct payments of $1,400 per person. Individuals making less than $75,000 and married couples making less than $150,000 collectively would receive the checks. The payments would gradually decrease for those earning more than those income levels, with the benefit capped at $80,000 for individuals and $160,000 for married couples, who won’t receive checks. The threshold is lower than Biden had initially proposed, and was changed to accommodate objections from moderate Democrats in the Senate.Unemployment benefits: The bill extends through early September the $300-a-week federal unemployment benefits approved in a previous aid package. Biden proposed expanding the supplement to $400 a week through August, but the Senate kept it at $300, while extending the benefit through September. It also included a provision to make the first $10,200 of unemployment benefits received in 2020 tax-free for households earning less than $150,000.Child tax credit: The legislation significantly increases – and expands eligibility for – the child tax credit, a longtime progressive priority that Democrats are hoping to make permanent after the pandemic. Under the bill, the tax credit would jump from $2,000 a child under 17 to $3,600 for children up to age five and $3,000 for children aged between six and 17. Taken together with other benefits, it is estimated the expansion will halve the number of children living in poverty in America.Health insurance subsidies: The bill would temporarily increase financial assistance for health coverage purchased through marketplaces established by the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. It also aims to help those who are unemployed keep their health coverage, as well as provides additional funding for military veterans’ healthcare and other health programs.Vaccine distribution and testing: The bill provides tens of billions of dollars to speed up vaccine distribution and administration, as well as increase coronavirus testing and enhance contact tracing and genomic sequencing.Pandemic response: The bill sends $350bn to state, local and tribal governments, to help offset deep budget shortfalls as a result of efforts to combat the pandemic. It also includes $130bn to help schools reopen safely by reducing class sizes and modifying classrooms to improve ventilation and social distancing. Colleges and universities would receive $40bn to help cover the cost of pandemic-related expenses. Businesses would also get funding, including under a new program to help bars and restaurants hurt by Covid lockdowns.Rental, mortgage and food assistance: The legislation also includes a number of other provisions that would provide assistance for food and housing, including money for low-income Americans to afford rent and pay their utilities, and aid to homeowners struggling to pay their mortgages because of the pandemic. More
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US House poised to approve Joe Biden's $1.9tn Covid relief plan
Sign up for the Guardian’s First Thing newsletterThe House of Representatives is poised to give final approval to Joe Biden’s sweeping $1.9tn coronavirus stimulus and relief plan, a giant aid package the president has said is critical for lifting the US out of the pandemic and reviving its battered economy.If passed by the House on Wednesday, as Democratic leaders expect, the first major legislative initiative of Biden’s presidency will rush assistance to families struggling under a year-long public health crisis and provide the most generous expansion of aid to low-income Americans in a generation.It will send direct payments of up to $1,400 to most Americans, expand aid to state, local and tribal governments, provide federal subsidies for those struggling to afford health insurance, housing and food and deliver money to boost Covid-19 vaccine distribution and testing and to safely reopen schools.Economists predict that as one of the largest emergency rescue packages in American history, the American Rescue Plan (ARP) will accelerate economic recovery, boosting growth to levels not seen in recent decades and dramatically reducing numbers living in poverty.According to one estimate, the ARP could cut child poverty by as much as half, through an expansion of a tax credit for families with children that many Democrats want to make permanent.House Democrats, who hold a slim majority, were confident the measure would pass on Wednesday morning, despite changes made in the Senate that threatened to alienate some progressives.The New York congressman Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic Caucus chair, said he was “110% confident” of success. Once passed by the House, the bill will be sent to Biden for signature.The Senate passed the bill on Saturday in a 50-49 vote, Democrats overcoming unified Republican opposition and a last-minute objection by Joe Manchin of West Virginia, a member of their own party.The package before the House on Wednesday was narrower than Biden’s initial proposal, which included progressive priorities subsequently either stripped out or scaled back to appease moderates like Manchin, who echoed Republicans with concerns that the infusion of aid was too big in an economy showing signs of revival.A provision to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour was deemed inadmissible under a budget process Democrats used to bypass Republican opposition.The Senate-approved version tightens eligibility for stimulus checks and restructures a proposal for unemployment benefits that Biden hoped to raise to $400 a week. Under the new plan, unemployment benefits will remain at $300 a week but will be extended through the beginning of September, rather than August. The first $10,200 of supplements from 2020 will be made tax-free.Though disappointed with some of the amendments, Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, called them “relatively minor concessions” and said the overall package remained “truly progressive and bold”.Republicans say the plan is excessive and mismatched to the economic and public health outlook, as more Americans are vaccinated and states move to reopen businesses and schools. They have also revived concerns the package will grow the national debt, worries they set aside under Donald Trump.“We know for sure that it includes provisions that are not targeted, they’re not temporary, they’re not related to Covid and it didn’t have to be this way,” said the Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney, House Republican Conference chair. “We could have had a bill that was a fraction of the cost of this one, it could have gotten bipartisan approval and support.”The extraordinary price tag is just shy of the $2.2tn coronavirus relief bill signed into law by Donald Trump at the onset of the pandemic last March. It will be the sixth spending bill Congress has enacted to address the devastation wrought by the twin public health and economic crises, and is poised to be the first to pass without bipartisan support despite Biden’s campaign promise to work with Republicans.Yet the lack of consensus in Washington belies its popularity with voters across the political spectrum and local and state officials of both parties. Encouraged by polling that shows broad public support for the bill, Biden and Democrats have argued that the plan is bipartisan.Final passage of the bill will come a day before Biden is due to deliver his first primetime speech on Thursday, marking the first anniversary after the introduction of sweeping public health measures to try to control the spread of the Covid-19 virus that has killed nearly 525,000 Americans and battered the economy.Although vaccine distribution is ramping up dramatically and the economy is showing some signs of improvement, Democrats say the recovery is precarious and uneven, and that low-income Americans still need help. Millions of Americans remain unemployed with the poorest hit hardest.“This not only gets us to the other side of this crisis, it really starts healing the wounds that have been caused by this crisis,” said Steny Hoyer, the House Democratic majority leader.After Biden signs the bill into law, he and other top officials will continue to promote the plan to the American public, part of a push by the new administration to ensure Democrats receive credit for an economic recovery ahead of the 2022 congressional midterm elections.“We certainly recognize that we can’t just sign a bill,” the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, told reporters on Tuesday. “We will need to do some work and use our best voices, including the president, the vice-president and others, to communicate to the American people the benefits of this package.”In a departure from his predecessor, Biden’s signature will not appear on the memo line of the stimulus checks sent to Americans, Psaki said. “This is not about him,” she added. “This is about the American people getting relief.” More
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Nancy Pelosi hails 'historic' Covid relief bill as House prepares to vote
The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has hailed the massive $1.9tn Covid relief bill as “historic” and “transformative” as the House stood poised to give the legislation final approval with a vote on Wednesday morning.Joe Biden, who will mark a year since the pandemic brought shutdowns across the nation with a primetime speech on Thursday, has said he will sign the bill as soon as it lands on his desk.The House vote on the bill, which includes checks for most American households, comes after the Senate passed a modestly reworked version of the package on Saturday and will clinch Biden’s most significant early legislative achievement.“It’s a remarkable, historic, transformative piece of legislation, which goes a very long way to crushing the virus and solving our economic crisis,” Pelosi said during a press conference with senior Democrats on Tuesday afternoon, who took turns extolling what they said was the historic nature of the legislation and its impact on reducing poverty in America. “I’m so excited, I just can’t hide it,” she added.Several Democratic leaders compared it to the passage of the Affordable Care Act, saying the plan would not only “crush” the virus and the economic fallout but would look forward to tackle longstanding racial and gender inequalities in the economy.Smiling under her mask, Pelosi expressed full confidence that Democrats had the votes to pass the bill.Asked about possible defections from progressive members disappointed that the Senate had narrowed a version of the bill, initially proposed by Biden and passed by the House, Pelosi shook her head and said “no” repeatedly. The bill would head to Biden’s desk after the vote on Wednesday, she said.Besides the fresh round of stimulus checks, the bill also extends emergency jobless benefits to early September, instead of 14 March. It spends huge amounts on Covid-19 vaccines, testing and treatments, while also aiding state and local governments and schools, assisting small businesses and providing major expansions of tax breaks and programs for lower- and middle-income families.Progressives suffered setbacks, especially the Senate’s removal of a gradual minimum wage increase to $15 hourly by 2025. But the measure carries so many Democratic priorities that final passage was not in doubt, despite the party’s narrow 10-vote House majority.Meanwhile a hefty majority of Americans – 70% – say they are in favor of the coronavirus relief package. Only a third of Americans said the legislation is too costly, according to a poll from Pew research.Biden has said he will not be attaching his signature to the $1,400 relief checks that are expected to be mailed soon, a break with his predecessor who last year had “President Donald J Trump” printed on the economic impact payments approved by Congress.The next round of paper checks will bear the signature of a career official at the treasury department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said at a Tuesday briefing.Psaki said the goal was to get the payments out quickly instead of branding them as coming from Biden.“This is not about him, this is about the American people getting relief,” Psaki said. More
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The Guardian view on women and the pandemic: what happened to building back better? | Editorial
One year into the pandemic, women have little cause to celebrate International Women’s Day tomorrow, and less energy to battle for change. Men are more likely to die from Covid-19. But women have suffered the greatest economic and social blows. They have taken the brunt of increased caregiving, have been more likely to lose their jobs and have seen a sharp rise in domestic abuse.In the UK, women did two-thirds of the extra childcare in the first lockdown, and were more likely to be furloughed. In the US, every one of the 140,000 jobs lost in December belonged to a woman: they saw 156,000 jobs disappear, while men gained 16,000. But white women actually made gains, while black and Latina women – disproportionately in jobs that offer no sick pay and little flexibility – lost out. Race, wealth, disability and migration status have all determined who is hit hardest. Previous experience suggests that the effects of health crises can be long-lasting: in Sierra Leone, over a year after Ebola broke out, 63% of men had returned to work but only 17% of women.The interruption to girls’ education is particularly alarming: Malala Fund research suggests that 20 million may never return to schooling. The United Nations Population Fund warns that there could be an extra 13 million child marriages over the next decade, and 7 million more unplanned pregnancies; both provision of and access to reproductive health services has been disrupted. In the US, Ohio and Texas exploited disease control measures to reduce access to abortions. The UN has described the surge in domestic violence which began in China and swept around the world as a “shadow pandemic”. Research has even suggested that the pandemic may lead to more restrictive ideas about gender roles, with uncertainty promoting conservatism.Coronavirus has not created inequality or misogyny. It has exacerbated them and laid them bare. Structural problems such as the pay gap, as well as gendered expectations, explain why women have taken on more of the extra caregiving. The pandemic’s radicalising effect has echoes of the #MeToo movement. Women knew the challenges they faced, but Covid has confronted them with unpalatable truths at both intimate and institutional levels.In doing so, it has created an opportunity to do better. Germany has given parents an extra 10 days paid leave to cover sickness or school and nursery closures, and single parents 20. Czech authorities have trained postal workers to identify potential signs of domestic abuse. But the deeper task is to rethink our flawed economies and find ways to reward work that is essential to us all. So far, there are precious few signs of building back better.Around 70% of health and social care workers globally are female, and they are concentrated in lower-paid, lower-status jobs. They deserve a decent wage. The 1% rise offered to NHS workers in the UK is an insult. The government also needs to bail out the childcare sector: without it, women will not return to work. It has not done equality impact assessments on key decisions – and it shows. The budget has admittedly earmarked £19m for tackling domestic violence, but Women’s Aid estimates that £393m is needed. And the UK is slashing international aid at a time when spending on services such as reproductive health is more essential than ever. Nonetheless, as a donor, it should at least press recipient governments to prioritise women in their recovery plans.Overworked and undervalued women have more awareness than ever of the need for change, and less capacity to press for it. Men too must play their part. Some have recognised more fully the demands of childcare and housework, and seen the potential benefits of greater involvement at home. Significant “use it or lose it” paternity leave might help to reset expectations both in families and the workplace. There were never easy solutions, and many look harder than ever. But the pandemic has shown that we can’t carry on like this. More
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Fauci warns against lifting Covid measures but Republican states push on
The top infectious disease expert in the US, Dr Anthony Fauci, has warned it is too early to end Covid-19 restrictions, despite Texas and Mississippi having lifted mask mandates and business capacity limits this week.States are easing restrictions after a drop in cases, though that decline is starting to plateau at a high rate of 60,000 to 70,000 infections per day.“We’re going in the right direction but we just need to hang on a bit longer,” Fauci said on Sunday, to CBS’s Face the Nation.Public health experts have warned that the US could undermine progress with vaccines and allow for thousands of preventable deaths by lifting restrictions at the first sign of improvements. More than 524,000 people have died from Covid-19 in the US and January was its deadliest month of the pandemic so far.Fauci, chief medical adviser to Joe Biden, said turning restrictions “on and off” risked another surge.“This is not going to be indefinite, we need to gradually pull back as we get people vaccinated,” he said.Michael Osterholm, an epidemiologist who advised Biden’s transition team, warned the US was still “in the eye of the hurricane”.Osterholm told NBC’s Meet the Press the situation appeared to be improving, but said he was concerned the B117 variant, which is 50% more infectious than other variants in the US, could create a new surge.“We do have to keep America as safe as we can from this virus by not letting up on any of the public health measures we’ve taken and we need to get people vaccinated as quickly as we can,” said Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.On CNN’s State of the Union, the Mississippi governor, Tate Reeves, said he lifted restrictions in his state because of declining rates of hospitalizations.“Our objective in Mississippi has never been to rid ourselves of the virus … our goal is to make sure we protect the integrity of our healthcare system,” the Republican said.Mississippi has seen an average of 461 cases per day, down 17% from the average two weeks ago, according to the New York Times. There were 1,240 deaths from Covid-19 in the state in January, the highest of any month since the pandemic began. About 16% of residents have received a first vaccine dose.“The numbers in Mississippi don’t justify government intervention,” said Reeves, who encouraged residents to keep wearing masks in crowded settings.Other governors have celebrated their state’s mask mandates and said they will remain in place until there is a substantial improvement in infection rates.Mike DeWine of Ohio, a Republican, told ABC’s This Week his state’s mask order was followed by a “significant drop in cases”.“We’ve seen it throughout this last year, these mask really, really work,” DeWine said.He said his state would drop health orders once it had 50 cases or fewer per 100,000 people for two weeks. Though rates were still high in Ohio, he said, the state’s vaccination distribution was getting better each day.“But as we’re doing that, we can’t give up the defense,” DeWine said.The dean of Brown University’s school of public health, Ashish Jha, said decisions such as those by Reeves and Texas governor Greg Abbott to lift restrictions could slow the process of getting life back to normal and put residents at risk of infection and death.“Given how close we are to the finish line, anybody who gets infected today and dies in three or four weeks is somebody who would have gotten vaccinated a month from now,” Jha told ABC. “This is why it’s urgent to just keep going for a little bit longer.” More
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Joe Manchin's stimulus stand exposes dangerous fissures in Democratic ranks
Seeking to explain his part in dramatically prolonging marathon Senate proceedings before the passage of Joe Biden’s $1.9tn coronavirus relief bill, Joe Manchin may only have succeeded in exposing a dangerous fissure in Democratic ranks.In winning controversial modifications to benefits for struggling Americans, the West Virginia senator said, he had tried to “make sure we were targeting where the help was needed” and to do “everything I could to bring us together”.The latter remark, on Sunday to ABC’s This Week, might have provoked hollow laughter on the left. As Manchin, a powerful centrist in a Senate divided 50-50, toured the talk shows, he also faced up to fierce criticism from Alexandria Ocasio Cortez over his opposition to a $15 minimum wage, a measure dropped from the stimulus bill.The progressive congresswoman from New York has attacked Manchin and Senator Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, another opponent of the $15 wage, as “two people in this entire country that are holding back a complete transformation in working people’s lives”.“The $15 minimum wage never fit in this piece of reconciliation,” Manchin told CNN’s State of the Union. “Those are the rules of the Senate.” He also said he was in favour of raising the wage to $11 – a figure unacceptable to progressives and indeed the Republicans with whom Manchin insists he is willing to work.On Friday, Manchin mounted a late push to scale back unemployment benefits in the stimulus package, a huge and historic piece of legislation meant to help Americans struggling amid a pandemic which has cratered the US economy. His move prompted hours of negotiations, followed by a compromise and voting through the night.But Biden and the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, refused to criticise Manchin, the senator slapping his podium and emphasising the need for “unity, unity, unity”, particularly as every Republican present voted agains the relief bill.Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont attempted to include the minimum wage rise in the stimulus bill under budget reconciliation, requiring a simple majority rather than the 60-vote threshold which applies to most major legislation. But the Senate parliamentarian ruled against Sanders – much to progressives’ anger.“I know they made a big issue about this,” Manchin told CNN, “and I understand. Everyone has their right. I respect where [Ocasio-Cortez] is coming from, I respect her input, we have a little different approach.“We come from two different areas of the country that have different social and cultural needs. One was that you have to respect everybody.”The stimulus bill now goes back to the House before heading to Biden’s desk. House leaders have promised smooth passage but five defections would sink the bill. On Sunday Kate Bedingfield, the White House communications director, was asked if she thought progressives would support it.She told CNN the “historic and transformational piece of legislation … is going to cut child poverty and half” and said the White House hoped the left would “make that judgment” based on “what their constituents need”.It seems clear a $15 minimum wage has no hope of clearing 60 votes in the Senate. That super-majority, known as the filibuster, is said by champions including Manchin to protect minority rights – though it came to prominence largely as a way for southern segregationists to oppose civil rights reform.The House has passed HR1, a sweeping voting rights bill meant to counter efforts by Republicans in the states to dramatically restrict voting by groups that favour Democrats. But HR1 seems doomed unless Senate Democrats scrap the filibuster.Even if they did, centrists like Manchin would enjoy immense power. Speaking to NBC’s Meet the Press, the senator cited his own stand on the relief bill.“If what you saw happen with that 50-vote swing and one vote, no matter who, it maybe can make a big difference in a tied Senate, can you imagine doing day-to-day operations this way? Can you imagine not having to sit down … with your colleagues on both sides and have their input?“…I’m willing to look at any way we can. But I’m not willing to take away the involvement of the minority.”He also said he did not favour using reconciliation for voting rights legislation.“I’m not going to change my mind on the filibuster,” he said, “[and] I’m not going to go [to reconciliation] until my Republican friends have the ability to have their say also.”On Fox News Sunday, Manchin said he did support making the filibuster “painful” again, meaning a return to the requirement senators physically hold the floor of the Senate in order to block legislation, a process famously depicted in the James Stewart movie Mr Smith Goes To Washington.Bedingfield confirmed that Biden is also against scrapping the filibuster.Manchin’s power in the Senate was the talk of Washington even before the drama of Friday and Saturday.“I didn’t lobby for this position,” he told ABC. “I’ve never changed. I’m the same person I have been all my life and since I’ve been in the public offices. I’ve been voting the same way for the last 10 years. I look for that moderate middle. The common sense that comes with the moderate middle is who I am. That’s what people expect.“…You’ve got to work a little bit harder when we have this toxic atmosphere and the divisions that we have and the tribal mentality. That’s not to be acceptable. You’ve got to work hard and fight that. Fight against those urges just to cloister in with your group and say, ‘Well, this is where I am.’”Progressives disagree. On Friday Bonnie Watson Coleman of New Jersey tweeted: “I’m frankly disgusted … and question whether I can support this bill.” She also told USA Today she was “thinking very hard about making a statement” in the House.“As progressives,” she said, “we’re going to have to figure out where the line in the sand is.” More
