Joe Biden unveils US$1.9 trillion plan for coronavirus-hit US economy

Name: Coronavirus: California’s Disneyland hosts mass Covid-19 vaccination site
Uploaded: 2021-01-14T22:40:14.000Z
Duration: 2 min 14 s
Description: Coronavirus: California’s Disneyland hosts mass Covid-19 vaccination site

The proposed stimulus package will include funds to improve virus response and vaccine roll-out, as well as relief for households and small businesses

The plan also calls for US$1,400 stimulus cheques, topping up the US$600 cheques issued under the last package

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US President-elect Joe Biden speaks on January 14, 2021, in Wilmington, Delaware. Photo: AP

Reuters

Published: 6:40am, 15 Jan 2021Updated: 1:12pm, 15 Jan 2021

US President-elect Joe Biden on Thursday unveiled a US$1.9 trillion stimulus package proposal designed to jump-start the economy and speed up the US response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Biden campaigned last year on a promise to take the pandemic more seriously than President Donald Trump, and the package aims to put that pledge into action with an influx of resources for the coronavirus response and economic recovery.

“It’s not hard to see that we’re in the middle of a once-in-several-generations economic crisis with a once-in-several-generations public health crisis. A crisis of deep human suffering is in plain sight and there’s no time to waste,” Biden said in a prime-time address on Thursday evening. “We have to act and we have to act now.”

Details of the aid package were released by Biden’s transition team earlier on Thursday.

It includes US$415 billion to bolster the response to the virus and the roll-out of Covid-19 vaccines, some US$1 trillion in direct relief to households, and roughly US$440 billion for small businesses and communities particularly hard hit by the pandemic.

Stimulus payment checks would be issued for US$1,400 – topping up the US$600 checks issued under the last congressional stimulus legislation. Supplemental unemployment insurance would also increase to US$400 a week from US$300 a week now and would be extended to September.

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Coronavirus: California’s Disneyland hosts mass Covid-19 vaccination site

Biden’s plan is meant to kick off his time in office with a large bill that sets his short-term agenda into motion quickly: helping the economy and getting a handle on a virus that has killed more than 385,000 people in the United States as of Thursday.