The US authorities are preparing to take a new package of anti-crisis measures in the amount of 900 billion dollars and give the Americans money just like that. This agreement was reached in Congress, points out Bloomberg . This agreement provides, in particular, direct payments to citizens of $ 600, which is two times less than at the height of the first wave of the epidemic.
In addition, there are weekly increments to unemployment benefits ($ 300 each) until March and measures to support airlines, cinemas and concert venues (each industry $ 15 billion), another 82 billion will be allocated to schools, and more than 50 billion will go for the introduction of vaccines, testing and tracking the incidence of coronavirus. They want to allocate 284 billion for loans to small businesses.
The text of the bill is still being prepared. The House of Representatives is expected to vote on the package on Monday, December 21, following the Senate. Earlier, Congress allocated more than three trillion dollars to support the economy, but despite a sharp increase in the number of infected people and a congested healthcare system, it has not taken any measures since April. For a long time, Democrats and Republicans could not agree on a new package. New US President-elect Joe Biden said that the first thing he would do was to fight the coronavirus epidemic – vaccinations and economic recovery.
Now the USA beats records for the number of cases of coronavirus: December 20 in the country recorded over 400 thousand cases of COVID-19 per day, which is almost 150 thousand more than the previous maximum.