After fighting over several points, Senate Democrats finally passed President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion covid relief bill, and it’s being touted as “one of the largest anti-poverty bills in recent history.”
The legislation includes $1,400 stimulus checks, $300 jobless benefits per week through the summer, and a child allowance of up to $3,600 for one year for children under age 6, NBC reported. It also pays up to $3,000 for children older than 6. It will also now pay for 17-year-olds.
A House vote on changes to the bill is expected on March 9.
Here’s what the passage of Biden’s stimulus package means for Black America.
The Senate passed the package on March 6 with a final vote of 50-49 along party lines. Every Republican voted “no.”
Twitter noted the lack of Republican support.
“Not a single Republican wanted to help Americans in a time of need. Do not forget this,” one person tweeted.
One responded, “I wonder what the GOP argument will be in 2022 during the midterms. I mean how do you vote against sending a family of 4, 70k in help with childcare? Like how do you defend that?”
Another praised the Democrats. “Of course this isn’t everything I wanted but proud of the party, the voters in GA and 80+ million ppl who knew govt can work to help solve problems”
Black Americans are twice as likely as whites to need covid stimulus checks just to get by, according to a recent survey, CNBC reported.
Fifty percent of African Americans said they need government financial assistance, compared to 22 percent of whites, according to a new CNBC + Acorns Invest in You survey conducted by SurveyMonkey.
Some people are still waiting for their last payment of $600. While more than three-quarters of whites say they’ve received at least one federal covid-19 aid payment, only 65 percent of Black people say they received the funds, according to the survey.
A study by the Urban Institute found stimulus checks were delivered faster to wealthy whites than to Black families, Forbes reported.
“Checks are likelier to get lost in the mail, so if you don’t have a bank account for direct deposit, then it’s easier to miss your stimulus payment,” said Louis Barajas of the CNBC Financial Advisor Council.
The Black community makes up 18.2 percent of the unbanked and 31.1 percent of the underbanked in the U.S., according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
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Twenty-six percent of Black survey respondents said they would spend a stimulus payment on housing, versus 12 percent of whites.
