On Thursday evening, President-Elect Joe Biden delivered a speech where he proposed a $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan. Among the major elements of the proposal is $350 billion for state and local governments.
Components of President-Elect Biden's American Rescue Plan include:
- Support for communities that are struggling in the wake of COVID-19 by providing support for the hardest-hit small businesses, protecting the jobs of the first responders, transit workers, and other essential workers we depend on.
- Mounting of a national vaccination program, containing COVID-19, and safely reopening schools, including setting up community vaccination sites nationwide, scaling up testing and tracing, eliminating supply shortage problems, investing in high-quality treatments, providing paid sick leave to contain spread of the virus, addressing health disparities, and making the necessary investments to meet the president-elect's goal of safely reopening a majority of K-8 schools in the first 100 days.
- Delivering immediate relief to working families bearing the brunt of this crisis by sending $1,400 per-person checks to households across America, providing direct housing and nutrition assistance, expanding access to reliable childcare and affordable healthcare, increasing the minimum wage, extending unemployment insurance, and giving families with kids and childless workers an emergency boost this year.
The proposal requires congressional approval and 60 votes for consideration in the Senate. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and incoming Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer promised swift consideration.
Contact: Paul Penna, Legislative Analyst, ppenna@njlm.org, 609 695-3481, x110.