Senate passes the $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill
Yahoo Finance’s Jessica Smith joins the Yahoo Finance Live panel to discuss the Senate passing $1.9T COVID-19 relief bill.
Video Transcript
AKIKO FUJITA: But we are kicking off this hour with the big developments in Washington. The House set to revisit that $1.9 trillion COVID relief package after the Senate passed it over the weekend. Let's bring in Jessica Smith for the very latest on that front and just how quickly are we expecting this revised bill to move through the House
JESSICA SMITH: Well, we are expecting the House to take this up and vote on this bill tomorrow. So that would mean Democrats are on track to get this done before March 14, when those enhanced unemployment benefits are set to expire. The Senate did make some changes to the House version of the bill, so that's the reason the House is voting on this again.
Of course, the big change was stripping the minimum wage hike from the legislation. But ultimately, it includes $1,400 stimulus checks, though fewer people will be eligible for partial checks in the Senate version of the bill. It also has an expansion of the child tax credit. Parents can get up to $3,600 a year for children under 6, and then $3,000 a year for older children.
It has the enhanced unemployment benefits, though that was a really big point of debate on Friday. It held up votes for most of the day on Friday, but they ended up going with an extra $300 per week through September 6. So that's less per week than what was in the House bill, but it lasts a little bit longer. And the Senate Bill also made the first $10,200 in unemployment benefits from last year nontaxable. It also has more state and local funding, money for vaccines, and money for schools.
Not a single Republican voted for this bill in the Senate. Republicans have called it a liberal wish list and have bashed it for not being more targeted. No House Republicans voted for this the first time around, so we don't expect them to get on board now. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has really slammed this bill for being so partisan, when the last relief packages did have support from both sides of the aisle. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer responded to that criticism over the weekend. Let's watch.
CHUCK SCHUMER: Sure, it would be nice if the Republicans would join us, but they didn't. I thought it was a little bit hypocritical of Mitch McConnell to say, oh, we did it bipartisan. Yeah, when Trump was president, Democrats in the minority didn't block things. We worked to get something done. Now that we're in the majority, they don't seem to want to work with us.
JESSICA SMITH: Now, if the House does pass the bill as expected tomorrow, President Biden says that stimulus checks could start going out this month. He also says that this bill will cut child poverty in half. That is largely due to the expansion of the child tax credit. Zack and Akiko, we'll talk about that more in the next hour.
AKIKO FUJITA: OK. We'll check back in with you then. Thanks so much for that, Jess.
