Senate Passes $900 Billion Covid-19 Relief Package

The Senate voted 91-7 late Monday to approve both the infusion of coronavirus aid and a full-year spending bill that will fund the government through September. The package passed the House earlier Monday evening in a 359-53 vote.

The 5,593-page bill approves another round of direct checks of $600 per adult and $600 per child, adds $300 to weekly unemployment payments for 11 weeks and extends two other unemployment programs, supplies more than $300 billion in relief for small businesses, including a second round of the Paycheck Protection Program, and pours more than $50 billion into distributing coronavirus vaccines, as well as testing and tracing efforts.

“We are going to pass another historic rescue package to help American families through this pandemic,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said on the Senate floor Monday before the vote. “None of us think any of this legislation is perfect. But a big, bipartisan majority of us recognize the incredible amount of good it will do when we send it on to the president’s desk.”

The votes marked the final resolution of a bitter, monthslong fight as lawmakers wrestled with how to respond to the virus as it upended the economy and daily existence for the entire country. Even the negotiations that produced the final agreement were transformed by the pandemic, as lawmakers dug into policy disputes over Zoom meetings and conference calls.

Write to Kristina Peterson at [email protected] and Andrew Duehren at [email protected]