Trump Signs $2T COVID-19 Stimulus Package

U.S. President Donald Trump signed a $2 trillion economic stimulus package in response to the coronavirus crisis on Friday (March 27), CNBC reported. The action came after the House ratified the stimulus bill by voice vote on Friday two days after it was passed by the Senate.

“I signed the single biggest economic relief package in American history,” Trump said. “This will deliver urgently needed relief to our nation’s families, workers and businesses, and that’s what this is all about.”

The expedient passage in the House came even with a lawmaker’s eleventh-hour attempt to require a recorded vote, The Wall Street Journal reported.

The stimulus plan comes with bolstered unemployment insurance, single payments to persons, loans as well as grants to companies to discourage layoffs, and more healthcare funding.

Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, referred to the legislation “as mitigation” of the damage caused by the pandemic. She forecast there would be additional efforts to help “recovery.” Leaders in the House had aimed to congregate many members to stop U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie from asking for a recorded vote.

Legislators sat in the gallery to put more space in between them. The United States now, for its part, has over 92,000 instances of the coronavirus per data that Johns Hopkins University assembled, which is the highest around the globe. And a minimum of 1,380 deaths have been connected to COVID-19 domestically.

The package comes as the last of three bills Congress passed in the last two weeks to help lessen the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic that is affecting the economy and healthcare system in the United States. The Phase 1 legislation was an $8.3 billion bill spurring coronavirus vaccine development and research.

Phase 2, on the other hand, was geared toward offering paid emergency sick time off for some workers in addition to bolstering aid for state unemployment insurance as well as food assistance for a cost of approximately $104 billion.

But Phase 3 comes at a cost tenfold of what Phases 1 and 2 cost. The negotiations between both parties have been tense, especially since the discussions are taking place under a ticking clock as businesses stay closed.

For updates on the impacts of the pandemic, check the PYMNTS Coronavirus Data Center.