Senate and House leaders on Sunday announced an agreement on a nearly 900 900 billion Covid-19 relief package that includes special assistance to combat independent movie theaters and live entertainment venues.
The package allocates 15 billion to theaters and other cultural institutions, in the months following which artists and entertainment industry trade groups called for some kind of targeted relief, introducing a law called the Save Our Stage Act. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the aid was included in the final agreement.
The text of the law has not yet been released. The House expects to vote on the bill Monday and the Senate will not last long after that.
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Pelosi and Schumer also said the relief bill would include provisions to make the wider scope of newspapers, TV stations and radio stations eligible for paycheck protection program loans. That relief is aimed at small businesses, but many media outlets do not qualify because they are part of larger media companies. The bill expects the language to be included in granting such loans to individual media but not to their parent companies.
The Paycheck Protection Program, meanwhile, will be repaid with an additional 28 4,284 billion for the first and second loans, which will be forgivable if the recipients meet a set of requirements on how the money is spent. Dozens of manufacturers, law firms, publicity shops, post-production houses and other entertainment companies took out loans in the first round last spring.
In addition to funding for vaccine distribution, other components of the relief package include:
Direct payment. Up to $ 600 per person will be provided, an amount equal to half the size of the payment sent earlier this year. Those who make 75,000,000 per year are eligible for full payment, and those who make about 99,000,000,000 are not eligible.
Unemployment insurance. Those who are out of work, for a total of 11 additional weeks, will be eligible for unemployment benefits of 300 300 per week, above the typical level presented by the states. That amount is half of the $ 600 per week that is included in the Care Act, a relief bill passed in March. The law extends a program that was passed in March, when a wider scope of workers was eligible, including freelancers, piecemeal workers and independent contractors. Which was to end at the end of the year.
Rental Payment Assistance: The law sets ડો 25 billion to help families pay rent, and defer vacancies.
Broadband access: Broadband increase provides 7 7 billion to increase access. The money includes assistance to help low-income and unemployed workers pay for internet service.
Congress is expected to vote on the proposal on Sunday or Monday. The House in May a. passed a trillion-dollar bill, and then devalued to ૨ 2.3 trillion in October, but negotiations remained at a standstill until this month. That’s when a bipartisan group of legislators proposed a smaller package, which did not include accountability defenses, which Republicans want, and big state and local governments, which Democrats want.
