The “American Rescue Plan Act” (ARPA) – the Biden administration’s $1.9trn relief package, signed into law on 11 March – has been described by the White House as “one of the most consequential and most progressive pieces of legislation in American history”. Among other things, the bill provides direct payments to most Americans and expands support for families with children.
Some are frustrated about Biden’s surrender on the proposal to introduce a $15 minimum wage, the scaled-back unemployment insurance, the failure to turn the child tax credit into a universal child allowance, and that much of the spending in the bill is due to phase out over the next year or two. Others have hailed the bill as a “paradigm shift” and compared it to FDR’s New Deal programmes.
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