Joe Biden reveals $1.9tn relief plan with $1,400 direct payments to Americans

The United States’ President-elect Joe Biden has revealed a $1.9tn (£1.4tn) Coronavirus stimulus package for the US economy before he takes office next week, TopNaija reports.

If passed by Congress, it would include $1tn for households, with direct payments of $1,400 to all Americans and also includes $415bn to fight the virus and $440bn for small businesses.

Biden has promised to beat the pandemic that has killed more than 385,000 people in the US.

In a primetime speech on Thursday night from his hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, he said: “A crisis of deep human suffering is in plain sight and there’s no time to waste.”

“The very health of our nation is at stake,” he added. “We have to act and we have to act now.”

The incoming president said: “There will be stumbles, but I will always be honest with you about both the progress we’re making and what setbacks we meet.”

The package includes $20bn for vaccinating Americans, including setting up mass vaccination hubs and dispatching mobile units to remote areas. Two effective vaccines were delivered under the Trump administration, but health officials say the rollout needs to speed up.

“The vaccine rollout in the United States has been a dismal failure thus far,” said Biden. His administration aims to deliver 100m jabs in 100 days.

The package also includes $50bn to expand testing and $130bn to help most schools reopen by the spring. The plan would fund the hiring of 100,000 public health workers for contact tracing.

The supplemental jobless benefits would also increase to $400 a week from $300 a week now and extended until September, along with a moratorium on evictions and home repossessions.

The proposal for $1,400 direct payments to Americans would come on top of $600 payments provided in a relief bill enacted last month bringing payouts for families to the $2,000 figure that both Biden and the outgoing Donald Trump called for.

The president-elect will also call on Congress to double the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour. Prior to the release of the specifics, Michael Feroli of JP Morgan predicted Congress could pare Biden’s plan down to the $900 billion range, matching the measure approved last month.

Even the smaller amount would boost GDP growth this year to 5.3 percent and in 2022 to 2.6 percent, he said, a “remarkable expected turnaround” aided also by negligible inflation and the Federal Reserve’s maintenance of low borrowing rates