Showing posts with label Coronoavirus pandemic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Coronoavirus pandemic. Show all posts

Friday, April 24, 2020

The Congressional Black Caucus Issues Statement on New Emergency Interim Aid Senate Bill

The Congressional Black Caucus issued the following statement in response to the emergency Interim Aid Bill from the Senate:

The Congressional Black Caucus supports the additional resources for small businesses included in the latest federal response to COVID-19 and congratulates Speaker Pelosi and Democratic leadership for ensuring the inclusion of $75 billion in emergency funding for hospitals and $25 billion to increase testing and contact tracing. We also support the inclusion of $60 billion for the SBA Paycheck Protection Program to assist small lenders and community-based financial institutions. These needed resources will serve the needs of minority-owned businesses and underserved small businesses and nonprofits. Moreover, the $30 billion for Minority Depository Institutions, Community Development Financial Institutions, community lenders, and small community banks and credit unions is welcomed relief. Additionally, this legislation provides $50 billion for the SBA’s Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program, and $10 billion for the SBA’s Emergency Economic Injury Grant Program. However, much more needs to be done; for example, neither this bill nor the last bill included funding for the majority of the nation’s cities as resources were provided only for cities with populations greater than 500,000. There are only 33 cities in the country with populations of that size.

Although the inclusion of $25 billion for testing is a positive step forward, the CBC believes the bill should have required the Department of Health and Human Services develop a national strategy for testing Americans with a particular focus on concentrated efforts in communities where the death rate is out of proportion to the population. For example, African Americans are 30% and 61% of the population of Chicago and New Orleans, respectively, but 70% of those who died from COVID-19. Resources need to be provided directly to community and faith-based organizations to conduct outreach and public health education. In addition to targeted testing and outreach, there needs to be accurate data, including not just the death rate, but a complete picture of how the virus is affecting Americans. The Congressional Black Caucus will not just accept that nothing can be immediately done to address the extremely disproportionate rate of African Americans who are dying from COVID-19.

Thursday, March 19, 2020

Kamala Harris Introduces Legislation to Expand Access to Disaster Assistance During Pandemics


WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Kamala D. Harris (D-CA) on Thursday introduced the Pandemic Assistance Disaster Act, legislation to expand the ability of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to provide financial assistance directly to individuals during a pandemic, including the current coronavirus outbreak. Currently, FEMA can only provide individual assistance during natural disasters, such as wildfires, floods, and earthquakes.
“At a time when a global pandemic is threatening the financial stability of working families across our country, there is no reason for FEMA to treat those impacted by biological threats any differently than when a natural disaster strikes,” said Harris. “FEMA is not currently allowed to assist individuals who have been impacted by a pandemic, and that needs to change. I’m introducing this legislation to ensure the federal government can use every tool available to help the American people recover from the impact of the coronavirus.”
Specifically, at the discretion of a governor and the president, individuals impacted in any way will be eligible to apply directly to federal agencies for, among other forms of assistance:
  • Disaster Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (D-SNAP)
    • If already on SNAP, automatically puts individual at full SNAP benefits
    • If not already on SNAP, provides access to SNAP, with expanded eligibility
    • Benefits initially good for one month, but can be extended by the President
    • Directs USDA to provide options other than an in-person interview
  • Disaster Unemployment Assistance (DUA)  
    • Eligible if an individual’s job is shut down, they lose hours, or they cannot reach their place of work because of the pandemic
      • Eligibility rules are more flexible than traditional Unemployment Insurance (e.g. individual does not have to be technically unemployed)
    • State unemployment office is conduit for beneficiary
    • Good for 26 weeks, can be extended by the President
    • Creates a national floor for benefits at 1.5x the national weekly average
    • Provides waiver to requirement to exhaust state Unemployment Insurance options
  • “Other Needs Assistance” through FEMA’s Individual Assistance program
    • Includes multiple ancillary assistance, but three critical pieces for a pandemic would be:
      • Medical Assistance – assistance with medical expenses as a result of a disaster.
      • Funeral Assistance – available to families with loved ones that die from the disaster
      • Child Care Assistance – up to 8 weeks of child care expenses
Full bill text is available here.