Senate Agrees to Stimulus Package With Relief for Businesses, Individuals

Following days of negotiations and failed attempts, the U.S. Senate finally agreed to a $2 trillion stimulus package Wednesday aimed at propping up U.S. households and businesses amid the COVID-19 outbreak. White House and Senate leaders announced an agreement in the morning hours, the Associated Press (AP) reports, as they rush to move the bill through Congress.

Amid the unprecedented impacts of a pandemic that’s keeping American’s out of work and requiring businesses to navigate mandatory shutdowns, the package extends relief in the form of one-time payments to households, expanded unemployment and $367 billion aimed at small businesses to help extend payrolls. The move marks what officials are calling the biggest stimulus package in U.S. history.

While full details have yet to be released, reporting indicates that household aid will be dependent on income, providing direct one-time payments of $1,200 per adult and $500 per child, provided to “low- and middle-income families,” the New York Times reports. Its reporting also indicates that phase outs will begin at income thresholds of $75,000 per year.

Republicans won inclusion of an “employee retention” tax credit that’s estimated to provide $50 billion to companies that retain employees on payroll and cover 50% of workers’ paychecks, AP reports. Companies would also be able to defer payment of the 6.2% Social Security payroll tax. Among the relief aimed at larger industries, hospitals are expected to receive significant aid, but final sticking points in negotiations fell on a $500 billion fund for guaranteed, subsidized loans to be provided for “larger industries,” AP reports, including discussions over how generous stimulus packages should be for airlines.

In all, the resulting package is expected to be larger than those provided to banks in 2008 and the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act combined.

Kathy Krafka Harkema, U.S. codes and regulatory affairs manager for the Fenestration and Glazing Industry Alliance, says the organization is optimistic that Congress will reach agreement on a stimulus package.

“While Americans are anxious to see and understand the details in the monumental bill, its promise of emergency loans for small businesses, funds to help support business payroll needs and enhanced unemployment insurance to cover Americans for four months will help provide relief to those businesses and individuals impacted by business closures or dramatic slowdowns in the uncertainty of the pandemic,” she says. “The stimulus bill would also provide an infusion of much-needed money to states, localities and the healthcare system, which have all quickly rallied to battle the contagious virus rapidly on the rise in their states and communities. The federal government’s action to delay tax filing deadlines from the original April 15 date until July 15, 2020 without incurring penalties or interest also provides practical relief for businesses and individuals who have first focused on protecting the health of their family and their workforce much of this month since the pandemic began to accelerate in the United States and other countries.”

This story is developing and will be updated as more information is made available.