U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, D-Springfield, has announced a hopeful timeline for enacting the federal government’s $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package before existing benefits expire in March.
The House of Representatives’ Committee on Ways and Means, which Neal chairs, will be responsible for writing the bills that cover $940 billion of the total $1.9 trillion package that is being advanced by President Joe Biden.
Specifically, the Ways and Means Committee’s work addresses unemployment benefits, tax credits, health care and retirement security.
Neal announced Monday that the Ways and Means Committee plans to work on its proposals starting Wednesday and through Friday.
“Our nation is struggling, the virus is still not contained, and the American people are counting on Congress to meet this moment with bold, immediate action,” Neal said. “From increasing direct assistance to those who need it most to expanding tax credits for low- and middle-income workers, we deliver substantial solutions in this package.”
Neal said he and other Democrats in Congress hope to pass the legislation by mid-March, when existing emergency unemployment benefits expire.
Community Action Pioneer Valley, which provides social support services in Franklin and Hampshire counties and the North Quabbin area, applauds the federal government’s efforts, but also expects that even more aid will be necessary in the future, said the organization’s Executive Director Clare Higgins.
“If there’s a time to have a federal government, now is the time, during a pandemic,” Higgins said. “This large federal COVID relief package has a number of things that I think are really needed in communities.”
Among the most pressing issues, Higgins said, would be support for child care expenses, unemployment benefits and the direct cash payments.
To those points, the proposal outlined by Neal would expand weekly unemployment checks from $300 to $400 and would extend the emergency unemployment program through Aug. 29; expand child tax credits and allow families to claim expenses related to child care; and send $1,400 checks to working Americans, intended to supplement the $600 checks sent in December.
However, the total $1.9 trillion plan is expected to be whittled down during negotiations in Congress. Last week, Republicans from Congress met with Biden to discuss their counter-proposal, worth only $618 billion. Congress ultimately voted to pursue Biden’s more ambitious plan. But, in the Senate, which is split evenly between 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats, the vote was initially a tie, and had to broken by Vice President Kamala Harris.
A proposal for a $15 minimum wage, in the package from the House Committee on Education and Labor, is seen as a long shot. Biden has acknowledged it is unlikely to make it into the final law.
Franklin County Continuing the Political Revolution, a Greenfield political organization that advances an agenda inspired by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, likewise endorses the proposal to establish a higher federal minimum wage, but acknowledged it may be difficult.
“We definitely support that,” said David Greenberg, who is on the group’s coordinating committee. “We hope it can be put through, one way or another.”
Reach Max Marcus at mmarcus@recorder.com or 413-930-4231.