Extended unemployment insurance
$300 per week jobless benefits through September.
Current federal unemployment benefits, which allot an additional $300 per week on top of state benefits, will expire on March 14. The Senate’s bill extends the program through Sept. 6, at $300 per week. The households with an earning under $150,000, of which the first $10,200 of the unemployment benefits are nontaxable which will prevent surprise billing at the end of the year.
There were also changes from the House version of the bill, which provided $400 a week through August 29. The reduction in unemployment insurance in the Senate’s version was carried out to ensure moderate Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, would not break with his party, according to a Democratic aide.
Expanded tax credits for families
Payments up to $3,600 per child.
The bill increases the child tax credit for many families in the coming year by $1,000, to $3,000 per child. It’s even more for families with young children: many can receive a credit of $3,600 for each child under age six. All of these credits are fully refundable, and some researchers say these measures could potentially help cut child poverty in half.
Funding for state and local governments and public schools
$350 billion for states and local government.
The bill also delivers a $350 billion cash infusion to state and local governments and $130 billion to elementary, middle, and high schools to help them re-open safely.
Local budgets have faced steep reductions in revenue as businesses remained shut during COVID-19. Last September, the Brookings Institute estimated that state and local revenues would reduce by $155 billion in 2020, $167 billion in 2021 and $145 billion in 2022. The money for schools is designed to help them improve their ventilation systems, hire more janitors, and reduce class sizes to conform to social distancing protocols.
Relief for restaurants
$50 billion for small business and $28.6 billion grant relief for restaurants
The bill includes an additional $50 billion in assistance for small businesses, including more than $7 billion for the troubled Payment Protection Program.
In a break from previous relief packages, this bill provides $28.6 billion in grant relief specifically for restaurants, which have been particularly uprooted by the pandemic. According to a January 2021 analysis from the National Restaurant Association, the industry’s sales for 2020 were $240 billion lower than the pre-COVID-19 forecast, and over 110,000 restaurants had temporarily or permanently shut their doors across the country.
COVID-19 testing and vaccine distribution
$14 billion for vaccine distribution.
The bill allocates $20 billion in funding for vaccine distribution, including $1 billion for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to launch a vaccine awareness and engagement campaign, and $7.5 billion for the CDC to set up vaccination sites across the country and monitor distribution. The bill also includes $50 billion to increase COVID testing.
