What will be used for Joe Biden’s $ 1.9 trillion plan to revive the economy in the face of the pandemic

President Joe Biden’s $ 1.9 trillion economic stimulus package would have far-reaching effects on society as the country tries to weather a pandemic that has claimed the lives of more than half a million people in the United States. United.

The massive bill passed by the Senate on Saturday will provide direct payments to Americans, increase unemployment benefits, and provide a huge financial injection to states and local governments, as well as schools to help them reopen. In addition to allocating funds for priorities such as coronavirus testing and vaccine distribution. And it represents an ambitious anti-poverty agenda, delivering significant benefits to low-income people.

Here’s a guide to what’s in the plan, which must be approved by the House of Representatives on Tuesday and then sent to Biden for signature.

The bill will provide stimulus checks of $ 1,400.

People earning less than $ 75,000 and married couples earning less than $ 150,000 would receive direct payments of $ 1,400 per person. The bill would also provide $ 1,400 per dependent.

Payments would gradually decrease above those income levels and disappear completely when you exceed an income limit: $ 80,000 for individuals and $ 160,000 for married couples.

These maximum amounts have been lowered from the homemade version of the stimulus package, which set the limits at $ 100,000 for individuals and $ 200,000 for married couples.

The current increase of $ 300 per week in unemployment benefits will continue.

The bill extends unemployment programs until early September, including the federal supplement of $ 300 per week provided for in the last stimulus package approved in December.

Biden had offered to increase this additional benefit to $ 400 per week, which the House of Representatives agreed to, but the Senate left it at $ 300 per week.

The Senate bill also includes a provision that seeks to avoid surprise tax bills for people who have lost their jobs, by exempting the first $ 10,200 in unemployment benefits received in 2020 from federal income tax. income for those who lost their jobs. .

The child tax credit would be more generous, among other benefits.

By 2021, the bill would temporarily extend the child tax credit, which currently stands at $ 2,000 per child under 17. Under the law, the tax credit could reach $ 3,600 for children up to 5 years old and $ 3,000 for minors 6 to 17 years old.

The bill would make the full value of the credit available to low-income people who currently are not entitled to receive it or only receive a portion of it. And by the second half of this year, he would ask the federal government to send prepayments of credit to Americans in installments, something like guaranteed income for families with children.

The law would also expand the child care and dependents tax credit for 2021 and expand the income tax credit to childless workers for that year as well. Until 2025, it would exempt student loan forgiveness from income tax.

The resources would be used to fight the pandemic and to help states, local governments and schools.

The bill would provide funding for the distribution of vaccines, as well as for coronavirus testing, contact tracing and genomic sequencing. He would also donate money to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

It would provide $ 350 billion to states, local governments, territories and tribal governments and includes $ 130 billion for schools. It also includes funding for colleges and universities, transit agencies, housing assistance, child care providers, and food assistance.

In addition, the bill provides funds to help businesses, including restaurants and entertainment venues, and includes a bailout for financially troubled multi-employer pension plans.

The Affordable Care Act would benefit from a boost.

The bill would temporarily increase subsidies for people who buy health insurance from the Affordable Care Act markets. The future law will allocate billions of dollars to public health programs and health care for veterans.

It also aims to help those who have lost their jobs maintain the health insurance coverage they had through their employer, by covering the full cost of premiums through a federal program called the Consolidated Omnibus Budget. Reconciliation Act (COBRA, for its acronym in English) until September.

One thing is missing: an increase in the minimum wage.

As part of the stimulus package, Biden wanted to raise the federal minimum wage, which is now $ 7.25 an hour, to $ 15 an hour.

The stimulus bill passed by the House of Representatives would increase wages to $ 15 an hour by 2025, but the Senate MP said the provision violated strict rules Senate Democrats had to follow to pass the bill. through a special process that protected it from filibuster and allowed only with Democratic backing. On Friday, the Senate voted on whether to reinstate the wage increase in the bill.

The Senate bill also cut funding for a rail project in northern California’s Silicon Valley and a bridge between upstate New York and Canada, two provisions that were included in the House of Representatives bill and which provoked criticism from Republicans.

© The New York Times