John,

This week marks one full year of living with the COVID-19 pandemic.

One year ago today, the World Health Organization formally declared the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic. Companies began to implement work from home plans. Concerts and conferences were canceled. The stock market spiraled downward.

Fear gripped America—and the rest of the world. Meanwhile, Donald Trump and the Republican Party wrote COVID off as a “hoax.”

Today, we mourn the more than 500,000 Americans who have died as a result of the pandemic and the immeasurable suffering of millions more who were exposed to this disease. We reflect on the homes and livelihoods lost, and on the other fallout from this crisis across the country and around the world.

But we also celebrate our resiliency.

We stocked up on toilet paper and supplies, we learned how to use Zoom, we adjusted to working from home, and we practiced social distancing. We, for the most part, have learned to live with the new normal.

Today, President Biden signed into law an extraordinary relief package—the American Rescue Plan. We should appreciate the significance of this plan, and the fact that without 50 Democratic votes in the Senate, it would not have happened.

Here’s the result of our Democratic majority:

• Child poverty in the U.S. will be cut in half.
• Americans earning less than $75,000 as individuals or less than $150,000 as couples will receive an additional $1,400 stimulus check for themselves and another for each child or adult dependent in their care.
• The average household at the bottom of America’s economic ladder will see its annual income rise by more than 20 percent.
• A family of four with one working parent and one looking for work will have $12,460 more in government benefits to help them make ends meet.
• Struggling single parents in America will receive at least $3,000 more per child in government support, along with $1,400 for themselves, and additional support for nutritional assistance and rental aid.
• More than 1 million unionized workers who were poised to lose their pensions will now receive 100 percent of their promised retirement benefits for at least the next 30 years.
• America’s Indigenous communities will receive $31.2 billion in aid, the largest investment the federal government has ever made in the country’s Native people. Black farmers will receive $5 billion in recompense for a century of discrimination and dispossession, many of whom will escape from debt and retain their land as a direct result of the legislation.
• America’s child-care centers will not go into bankruptcy en masse, thanks to a $39 billion investment in the nation’s care infrastructure.
• Virtually all states and municipalities in America will exit the pandemic in better fiscal health than pre-COVID, avoiding layoffs of public employees and cutbacks in public services.
• ACA plans will become premium-free for a large number of low-income workers and no one in the United States will have to devote more than 8.5 percent of their income to pay for health insurance for at least the next two years.
• Unemployed workers will not see their federal benefits lapse this weekend and will have an extra $300 to spend every week through the first week in September.

The light at the end of the tunnel is becoming brighter and brighter. Millions of our loved ones are getting vaccinated every day and pre-pandemic normalcy seems to be on the horizon.

But we’re not there yet, so please continue to be careful!

Onward,

-Serve America

 

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