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President Biden Signs American Rescue Plan, Securing Direct Relief for Floridians and Billions of Dollars in Aid for the Sunshine State
This afternoon, President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan, a historic and comprehensive piece of legislation that will provide critical COVID-19 relief to Florida and get our economy back on track.
In response, Florida Democratic Party Chair Manny Diaz released the following statement:
“Today President Joe Biden and the Democrats delivered on their promise to provide desperately needed aid and relief to the American people. This pandemic has been devastating Florida for over a year, and now, after desperately waiting for months, help is finally here. The American Rescue Plan will make direct payments of $1400 to well over 10 million Floridians, expand unemployment insurance, cut child poverty in half, and rapidly expand vaccine access. This historic and transformational legislation will position our state to turn the tide on this pandemic, save the lives of countless Floridians, rental assistance, reduce health insurance premiums, and assist Main Street small businesses. President Biden and the Democratic Party have kept their promise to provide the American people the help they urgently need, while every single Republican in Congress voted to deny them this life saving support during this crisis.”
More on what the American Rescue Plan will do for Florida:
- Over 10 million Florida households are going to receive stimulus payments of $1400 because of the American Rescue Plan.
- This plan more than doubles the weekly unemployment benefits for the average Floridian.
- The likely federal unemployment insurance impact here in Florida will be over 7 billion dollars. That is the difference between putting food on the table and not, between buying diapers for your child and not.
- This bill also expands the Child Tax Credit which will benefit over 3.8 million children in Florida and will lift hundreds of thousands of Florida children out of poverty altogether.
- This bill will offer Floridians over 1.1 billion dollars in rental assistance.
- The American Rescue Plan is going to provide over 17 billion dollars to the state and local governments here in Florida. With approximately 10 billion going directly to our state government. – money that our Republican led state legislature desperately needs to make up COVID-19 related budget shortfalls, and money that local governments need. That is why Republican and Democratic mayors across the state support the plan.
- Over 2.3 Billion Dollars in FEMA funding that will help provide more vaccine access to more Floridians, more quickly.