Friends,
Last week, Cory helped negotiate and then voted for the CARES Act — a nearly $2 trillion stimulus package meant to address the health and economic impacts caused by the coronavirus.
It’s a critical piece of legislation that will go a long way toward protecting our health and safety while helping families and small businesses across our country stay afloat.
You may have already heard about the direct cash payments and expanded unemployment benefits — two major components of the relief package. But below is a quick recap of five parts of the coronavirus stimulus bill you might have missed.
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Financial support for small businesses. This bill will extend billions of dollars in aid to support small businesses who keep workers on payroll during this crisis Known as the Payroll Protection Program, the federal government will guarantee forgivable loans for small businesses in the U.S. to cover operating expenses for eight weeks. Operating expenses include utilities, payroll expenses, or mortgage or rent payments.
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Help for our health care system. The CARES Act allocates billions of dollars to help hospitals ensure they have the equipment and resources they need to take care of people who need help. Local hospitals, public entities, non-profit entities, and Medicare and Medicaid enrolled suppliers and institutional providers can apply for grants to cover unreimbursed health care related expenses or lost revenue.
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Investing in our students and educators. The CARES Act provides funding to K-12 and higher education to help educators and students transition to online and remote learning. HBCUs and other minority-serving institutions will also receive much-needed financial aid.
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Support for affordable housing. Homeowners can seek up to a one-year forbearance on all federally-backed mortgages. The bill provides a 60-day moratorium on foreclosures and evictions on all federally-backed mortgages, 90-day forbearance on federally-backed loans for owners of multifamily rental properties, and 120-day eviction protection for tenants.
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Child care for essential workers. The bill provides access to high-quality child care for frontline workers like health care sector employees, emergency responders, sanitation workers, and others deemed essential during the response to the coronavirus.
Even with this help on the way, the fight goes on and there’s much more work to do. Cory is already working to pass additional legislation to address this ongoing health and economic crisis.
We’ll be in touch with more updates soon.
Booker HQ
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