● Help Americans stay in their homes by providing emergency aid to cover back rent. In
addition, the bill provides assistance to help struggling homeowners catch up with their
mortgage payments and utility costs through the Homeowners Assistance Fund. And, it
provides additional funding for families and individuals who are recovering from or at risk of
homelessness.
● Increase the value of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. The
American Rescue Plan will increase SNAP benefits by 15 percent through September 2021.
The bill also funds partnerships with restaurants to feed American families and keep workers in
the restaurant industry on the job. And, it provides U.S. territories like Puerto Rico additional
nutrition assistance funding, in addition to funding to make sure women, infants and children
get the food they need to help address food insecurity.
● Increase the Child Tax Credit from $2,000 per child to $3,000 per child ($3,600 for a child
under age 6) and make 17-year-olds qualifying children for the year. This means a typical
family of four with two young children will receive an additional $3,200 in assistance to help
cover costs associated with raising children. The families of more than 66 million kids will
benefit.
● Increase the Earned Income Tax Credit for 17 million workers by as much as $1,000. The
top occupations that will benefit are cashiers, food preparers and servers, and home health
aides – frontline workers who have helped their communities get through the crisis.
● Expand child care assistance, help hard-hit child care providers cover their costs, and
increase tax credits to help cover the cost of childcare. This is the single biggest investment in
child care since World War II.
● Give families an additional tax credit to help cut child care costs. Families will get back as
a refundable tax credit as much as half of their spending on child care for children under age
13, so that they can receive a total of up to $4,000 for one child or $8,000 for two or more
children.
● Provide an additional $1 billion for states to cover the additional cash assistance that
Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) recipients needed as a result of the crisis.
● Lower or eliminate health insurance premiums for millions of lower- and middle-income
families enrolled in health insurance marketplaces. A family of four making $90,000 could
see their monthly premium come down by $200 per month. This will help well over a million
uninsured Americans gain coverage. The plan also subsidizes premiums for continuation
health coverage (COBRA).
Support communities that are struggling in the wake of COVID-19. Millions of American workers
reside in communities that suffered disproportionately in recent months. The Plan provides critical
support to these communities. It will:
● Provide emergency grants, lending, and investment to hard-hit small businesses so they can
rehire and retain workers and purchase the health and sanitation equipment they need to keep
workers safe. This includes a Small Business Opportunity Fund to provide growth capital to
main street small businesses in economically disadvantaged areas, including minority-owned
businesses.
● Distribute more than $360 billion in emergency funding for state, local, territorial, and Tribal
governments to ensure that they are in a position to keep front line public workers on the job
and paid, while also effectively distributing the vaccine, scaling testing, reopening schools, and
maintaining other vital services. State and local employment has fallen by around 1.4 million
jobs since the pandemic began including layoffs of 1 million educators, compared to around
750,000 job losses during the Great Recession.
● Help hard-hit public transit agencies avoid layoffs and service reductions, which
disproportionately harm workers who are more likely to be dependent on public transportation.