Coronavirus US: Who will benefit from $484bn stimulus bill?
The US House of Representatives on Thursday passed a bill providing further funds for small businesses and hospitals amid the Covid-19 crisis.
The United States House of Representatives on Thursday approved a 484-billion-dollar stimulus bill to provide more funds to small businesses and hospitals amid the coronavirus crisis.
US has now spent over 2.5tn dollars in bid to quell financial hit of coronavirus pandemic
Passed by a vote of 388-5, the measure has now been given over to US president Donald Trump to be signed into law.
The fourth such bill passed to tackle the financial impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the US economy, it takes the government’s spending response to the crisis to over 2.5tn dollars.
On Thursday, it was confirmed that a further 4.4 million people in America had filed for unemployment over the past week, meaning that the total number of citizens out of work in the country has risen by 26.4 million in the last five weeks.
Who will benefit from the 484bn-dollar stimulus bill?
As outlined by the US media outlet CNBC, the stimulus package includes:
- 310 billion dollars in fresh funds for the Paycheck Protection Program - a loan scheme for small businesses which, according to the US government, helps them "keep their workforce employed during the coronavirus crisis.” If all employees remain on the company’s wage bill for eight weeks and the money lent is used for “payroll, rent, mortgage interest, or utilities”, the loan will be forgiven
- 60 billion dollars for Small Business Administration Disaster Loans
- 75 billion dollars in grants to bolster hospitals overwhelmed by the pandemic
- 25 billion dollars to boost coronavirus testing in the US
See also:
50,000 dead in the US as a result of Covid-19
At the time of writing, the coronavirus had registered just under 870,000 cases and nearly 50,000 deaths in the US, the country most affected by the pandemic.
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