Senator Hassan Statement on President Biden Signing the American Rescue Plan into Law

WASHINGTON – After President Joe Biden today signed the American Rescue Plan into law, U.S. Senator Maggie Hassan pledged to work with the administration to get this much-needed relief out the door to the American people without delay.

“The American Rescue Plan will help us get more vaccines in arms, get our children back in schools, put people back to work, and help families and small businesses pay their bills,” Senator Hassan said. “I will work with the Biden administration to get this relief to the American people without delay.”  

The package includes Senator Hassan’s bipartisan bill to support new businesses that are currently left out of most relief programs and Senator Hassan’s amendment to require schools receiving relief funds to develop and make publicly available plans to return to in-person learning.

See below for just a few of the highlights from the American Rescue Plan:

• Provides $1,400 stimulus checks for each adult and dependent in most Granite State households
• Increases the child tax credit to $3,000 (or $3,600 for children under the age of 6)
• Delivers additional support for small businesses, including the bipartisan Recovery Startup Assistance Act that Senator Hassan introduced to provide payroll assistance through the Employee Retention Tax Credit to new businesses that were left out of previous rounds of aid
• Sends $170 billion to schools to help them safely reopen and address learning loss, and includes: 
  • Senator Hassan’s amendment to require schools receiving funds to develop and make public reopening plans
  • Dedicated funding for students who experience disabilities, which the Senator helped secure  
• $160 billion for public health, including funding to expand our nation’s health care workforce, to vaccinate every American
  • The legislation also includes a fix pushed by Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Hassan to address a vaccine funding allocation shortfall for New Hampshire
• Lower premium payments for many Americans purchasing health coverage through the Affordable Care Act marketplaces
• Provides an estimated $1.5 billion to New Hampshire state and local governments, which can be used to address revenue losses and help hold down property taxes
• Extends expanded unemployment benefits through September 6, 2021
• Provides $25 billion to restaurants, similar to relief in the bipartisan RESTAURANTS Act, which Senator Hassan cosponsored 
• Supports veterans through funding for the Veterans Health Administration, assistance for unemployed veterans, improved care at the VA, and reduced cost of medical care for veterans
  • The package also included Senator Hassan’s legislation to close a loophole that created incentives for for-profit colleges to target veterans and service members
• More than $7 billion for the E-Rate program, secured by Senator Hassan, which will help K-12 schools and libraries provide Wi-Fi hotspots, modems, routers, and internet-enabled devices – including internet service through such equipment – to help students amid the COVID-19 pandemic
• More than $12 billion in dedicated emergency funding for State Medicaid Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) that Senator Hassan helped secure

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