US President $1.9 Trillion COVID Relief Bill Has Been Approved In The House Of Representatives
Public Demonstrations Are Being Held In the US to Increasing the Minimum Wage from $7.5 to $15
The President of the United States, Joe Biden, has been able to approve the Covid relief plan which is worth $1.9 trillion in the House of Representatives. The vote counts were along partisan lines. Several Republic representatives, along with two Democrats, were in complete opposition with the proposed Covid relief plan as they see the project as too expensive.
The recently passed bill would now be going to be evenly divided Senate, which has blocked an important element, which is doubling the amount of the minimum wage provided across the country to $15 per hour. The Covid relief plan is seeking to further boost the testing and vaccination administration, along with stabilizing the economic status of the United States.
The amount of cash would be extended to provide financial aid to numerous households, small-scale businesses, along the state government. The unemployment across the US is around 10%, as more than 10 million individuals lost their employment due to the nationwide lockdown implemented by the government amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The votes for the Covid relief plan have arrived in the same week in which the government of the United States was able to record 500,000 deaths caused by critical severity caused by the coronavirus infection, which is the largest figure of any country throughout the world.
Votes for Covid relief plan
The current president of the United States, Joe Biden, has appealed as soon as he took his position in the Office in the past month for bipartisan unity, but there was around little to no show of it in the early morning of Saturday when the Democratic representatives completely scraped the entire bill through the vote of 219 to 212.
President Joe Biden has defended the project of Covid relief bill, which he calls the American Rescue Plan, as it is developed to provide help and relief to the residents of America amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which is not slowing as rapidly even after the administration of a viable coronavirus vaccine to the general population.
In opposition to the Covid relief bill, the Republicans stated that the planning has been done on an unnecessary large scale and is stuffed with priorities for the Democrats, which is completely unrelated to the coronavirus pandemic.
The division was redirected by the present representatives. The Democratic member Brendan Boyle stated that after around the time duration of 12 months comprised of despair and death across the country, the recovery for America would get started from tonight.
The Republican leader present in the House of Representatives during the time to vote for the Covid relief bill said that the Democrats are embarrassed by the non-COVID related waste in the Covid relief bill, due to which they are trying to jam it through the night.
Contents of the Covid relief bill
The Covid relief bill presented by President Joe Biden is the third major bill which is designed as a United States spending package amid the coronavirus pandemic. The amount of $1.9 trillion proposed by Joe Biden is actually less than the hefty amount proposed by the ex-president Donald Trump in the month of March last year.
Some of the key features included in the Covid relief bill includes; a check comprising of $1,400 per individual; although the amount could phase out for people with a high-income source, an extension of benefits for jobless individuals would be provided till the month of August this year to help more than 11 million individuals who have become unemployed in the past year, for the parent who has children under the age of 18 would be given benefits on a monthly basis, $70 billion to provide a boost in the testing and vaccine administration for prevention against COVID-19 infection.
Financial support to educational institutes, grants for small-scale businesses, and several other targeted industries, along with funding for local government, would also be provided from the funds of the Covid relief bill.
One of the key factors included in the bill is increasing the amount of minimum wage from $7.5 per hour to $15 an hour. The minimum wage has not been changed since the year 2009. One of the non-partisan Senate parliamentarians who was against the Covid relief bill stated that the budgetary limit does not allow raising the amount of minimum wage in this kind of situation.
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