The Biden emergency coronavirus plan — a summary

On Jan. 14, 2021 the “Washington Post” published a summary of President-elect Joe Biden’s proposed emergency coronavirus plan (“What’s in Biden’s 1.9 trillion emergency coronavirus plan”). While ambitious, there is no question the multiple crises the plan is expected to address are also daunting. Note this is a plan whose budgetary provisions would need to be considered and voted upon by Congress.

Here is a summary of its most notable provisions as reported by the Post along with some of my comments.

VACCINATION

PROGRAM » Twenty billion dollars would be invested in a vaccination program that would link the federal government in partnership with states, localities, tribes, and territories. Included would be plans for supporting community vaccination centers and mobile vaccination units for rural areas. It is worth noting that access has been an especially difficult problem and one it would appear the new administration intends to address.

EMERGENCY PAID LEAVE » The plan calls for expanded access to emergency paid leave including paid sick, and family leave and medical leave for parents with child care responsibilities.

SCHOOL FUNDING » Remote and hybrid learning has been especially difficult during this period and parents, students, and school administrators have been anxiously awaiting the opportunity to reopen. According to the summary, the proposal would allocate $130 billion to help schools reopen which could include reduction of class size, and modifying spaces for social distancing, improved ventilation and PPE.

HEALTH WORKERS » Funding would be provided for 100,000 public health workers to provide vaccine outreach and contact tracing.

RELIEF TO STRUGGLING FAMILIES » This category includes stimulus checks, expanded unemployment benefits, eviction protection, addressing the hunger crisis, minimum wage and expanding child tax credits.

STIMULUS CHECKS » This would include $2,000 stimulus checks, that is $1,400 additional to the $600 previously paid. As we might remember, the amount of the next stimulus payment almost sank the previous stimulus package as it moved through Congress as Democrats and President Donald Trump were in rare agreement to increase the payments from $600.

EXPANDED UNEMPLOYMENT

BENEFITS » According to the Post article, the Biden plan

would increase the benefit paid through the federal government to $400 per week and would extend the time frame through September. This is in recognition that many workers are still out of work and includes self-employed and “gig” workers (such as Uber drivers, etc.) who are not normally included in unemployment benefits provided by states.

EVICTION PROTECTION » The plan would extend eviction and foreclosure moratoriums through the end of September 2021. Also included would be additional rental assistance. An additional $5 billion would be allocated to help qualified persons cover home energy and water costs and $5 billion for emergency assistance to locate housing for people experiencing or at risk of homelessness.

HUNGER CRISIS » A portion of the funds allocated to struggling families would be allocated toward SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefits already approved to extend through the end of September and $3 billion for the WIC program (Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children).

MINIMUM WAGE » The proposal would also request Congress to increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour.

EXPAND CHILD TAX CREDITS » There are currently child tax credits in the federal tax code. The proposal would increase the credit and make 17-year-old children qualifying children for the year.

SUPPORT FOR COMMUNITIES

AND SMALL BUSINESSES » This portion of the proposal would include help for small businesses, aid to local governments, relief for transit systems, and support of tribal governments.

SUPPORT FOR SMALL BUSINESS » This portion of the plan would provide $15 billion in grants for small businesses and attempt to leverage $35 billion to $175 billion for loans for small businesses.

AID TO LOCAL GOVERNMENT » Those who were following the prior budget negotiations will remember one sticking point was assistance to local governments for which the majority Republican position was that this would be denied unless tied to legal liability protection for firms. Aid to local governments would include $350 billion in emergency funding for state, local and territorial governments to pay front line workers, distribute vaccines, increase testing and reopen schools.

Whether these proposals become law is for the future but at minimum putting forth a plan is a first step to dealing with what have been probably the most challenging issues of our lifetimes.

Janet Colliton, Esq. is a Certified Elder Law Attorney and limits her practice to elder law, retirement and estate planning, Medicaid, Medicare, life care and special needs at 790 East Market St., Suite 250, West Chester, Pa., 19382, 610-436-6674, colliton@ collitonlaw.com. She is a member of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys and, with Jeffrey Jones, CSA, cofounder of Life Transition Services LLC, a service for families with long term care needs. Tune in on Wednesdays at 4 p.m. to radio WCHE 1520, “50+ Planning Ahead,” with Janet Colliton, Colliton Elder Law Associates, and Phil McFadden, Home Instead Senior Care.