Biden signs $1.9T COVID-19 relief bill, a day earlier than expected

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden signed a sweeping $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package into law Thursday, authorizing a massive infusion of federal aid aimed primarily at working families.

“This historic legislation is about rebuilding the backbone of this country and giving people in this nation, working people, middle-class folks, the people who built this country, a fighting chance,” Biden said after signing the bill in the Oval Office, hours before he was to address the country in his first prime-time Oval Office speech.

Biden had planned to sign the legislation into law Friday, but he and his advisers, who for weeks had emphasized the urgency of delivering $1,400 direct relief payments and extended unemployment benefits, announced just after noon Eastern time Thursday that they didn’t want to wait any longer.

“The enrolled bill arrived last night — so @POTUS is signing it today,” chief of staff Ron Klain tweeted just after the White House added the Oval Office signing ceremony to the daily schedule. “We want to move as fast as possible. We will hold our celebration of the signing on Friday, as planned, with Congressional leaders!”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said after the signing, “People can expect to start seeing direct deposits hit their bank accounts as early as this weekend.”

The American Rescue Plan, which comes just months after a $900 billion package that lawmakers approved late last year, amounts to one of the biggest government relief efforts in the country’s history. Cleared Wednesday by the House after passing the Senate on a 50-49 partyline vote last week, the legislation is more than twice the size of the $787 billion 2009 American Recovery Act. And it is the latest in a series of such aid packages since last spring that together have provided roughly $4 trillion in assistance for individuals, businesses, states and local governments.

Its enactment comes one year to the day since the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic. The outbreak has devastated the economy, costing some 10 million jobs and claimed more than 529,000 lives in the U.S. With the enactment of the latest relief package, Biden said he would “launch the next phase of the COVID response and explain what we will do as a government and what we will ask of the American people.”

Despite having earned no Republican support, the latest package is broadly popular with the country, with about 3 in 4 Americans supporting its passage, according to recent polling. No Republicans are expected to attend the White House celebration Friday, Psaki said.