$484 Billion: Congress Passes the Latest Coronavirus Relief Bill to Aid Businesses and Hospitals
For the fourth time, President Trump signed a coronavirus relief bill that grants $484 billion to business and healthcare institutions. These sectors desperately need financial support after experiencing various crises to varying degrees caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
All in all, the bills will provide business relief, testing, and treatment, and cash compensation to taxpayers as well as the unemployed would amount to at least $2.4 trillion, according to the calculations of the Congressional Budget Office.
The Latest Coronavirus Relief Bill
Most of the funding of the bill was expected to go to small businesses through the Paycheck Protection Program, Trump said. The program is designed to provide loans to companies so that they can continue paying workers while abiding by stay-at-home orders.
Lawmakers passed the legislation with an air of certitude that was impressionable of unanimous choice. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi remarked that there were "millions of people out of work. We come to the floor with nearly 50,000 deaths."
The bill was comprised of $100 billion reserved for healthcare institutions, $60 billion for smaller banks that lacked lenders for support, and another $60 billion for loans and grants to small businesses by the Small Business Administration's program.
While this is already the fourth legislation for coronavirus relief provisions, Congress is confident that the passage of bills of the same nature will be coming in the weeks ahead.
There is a caveat that the Paycheck Protection Program will likely be depleted of the $250 billion as soon as it is delivered. Despite its recent launch, the program immediately reached its loaning capacity within a week after giving 1.7 million credits.
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American Workforce Still Optimistic about Retaining Employment after the Pandemic
In the United States alone, over 26 million people have lost their job. This has resulted in delays in mortgage payments and relief efforts being overwhelmed by the mass of families.
In a recent poll by the AP-NORC, American adults who believe the pandemic is accounted for the unemployment which has lost a job is at a ratio of 1:4. The survey, conducted through telephone calls of 1,507 interviewees, shows that the majority feel financially secure.
Two reasons that might explain this attitude can be that first, these respondents also expect that the jobs will be regained after the crisis. Secondly, these workers who believe they lost a source of income is not significantly different from earlier this month.
Perhaps part of the factors that contributed to the optimism might be the $2 trillion relief package given by the Congress that stabilized some American families' finances.
However, a more political rivalry has been driven by the decision of federal authorities to reopen the U.S. economy. The Republicans were more receptive to the idea than Democrats.
"It all depends on whether you're red and blue as to how you think about it," Monique Hewan, a nursing student from Kentucky, said in an interview with a news publication.
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