New Stimulus Package Is Going To Cost A Fortune

President-elect Joe Biden has announced that a huge stimulus package proposal is in the works. But it will be no easy feat combating the coronavirus and rebuild an economy that has been torn down by the worst pandemic to strike the globe in over 100 years.

So taking on such a major endeavor will cost more than just a pretty penny. 

The president, in an address to the nation from his hometown of Wilmington, Del., is expected to spell out his plans to speed up the nation’s COVID vaccination program, boost coronavirus testing capacity to help reopen businesses and schools, provide for $1,400 stimulus checks for Americans and federal funds for state and local governments to use to avoid laying off police officers, fire fighters and other first responders, as well as teachers and health workers.

But the price tag will be high. On Wednesday senior officials from the incoming Biden administration put the overall tab at $1.9 trillion. 

Officials said the package includes “sending $1,400 per-person checks to households across America, providing direct housing and nutrition assistance, expanding access to safe and reliable childcare and affordable healthcare, increasing the minimum wage, extending unemployment insurance, and giving families with kids and childless workers an emergency boost this year.”

Another $440 billion would be targeted to support communities and businesses that are struggling amid the pandemic “by providing support for the hardest-hit small businesses, especially small businesses owned by entrepreneurs of color, and protecting the jobs of the first responders, transit workers, and other essential workers we depend on,” a senior official said.

An additional $400 billion would be aimed at directly combating the coronavirus.

Among many other things, Biden’s plan would also widen unemployment insurance benefits “so American workers can pay their bills” and the minimum wage would be pushed up to at least $15 per hour.