Prairie State Wire

U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) and U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) released statements outlining Illinois-specific provisions in the recently passed bill.

The Senate on Saturday passed President Biden’s American Rescue Plan, which will provide emergency relief aimed to help revive Illinois' economy and health.

“President Biden’s American Rescue plan will improve Illinois’ public health and jumpstart our economy by investing billions of federal dollars in our state. I was proud to help secure provisions with Senator Duckworth to ramp up vaccine distribution efforts; provide a lifeline to workers, small businesses, and families; avoid devastating cuts in state and local government operations; get our kids back to school safely; and much more. We are close to finally putting this pandemic behind us,” Durbin said in the press release as reported by Capitol Fax.

“Relief is coming to hardworking families all across Illinois because of President Biden’s American Rescue Plan,” Duckworth said, according to the Capitol Fax. “Working together, Senator Durbin and I helped secure billions in investments that will boost our state’s vaccination efforts and testing availability while also delivering the support our working families, childcare programs, transportation systems, schools and small businesses need to get through this pandemic. These investments meet the moment and will help end this deadly pandemic.”

The emergency relief will see approximately $275 million in vaccine distribution money being issued to Illinois. Health departments will also receive about $1.5 billion for testing and public health. More millions have been put toward mental health, substance abuse treatment and for Illinois community health centers and health workforce.

An estimated 800,000 Illinoisans are claiming unemployment benefits and no longer have health insurance. This  package allows the unemployed to be able to stay on their employer-sponsored health plans through September, for free via COBRA.

A total of $10,200 in unemployment benefits will be exempt from federal income taxes for hundreds of thousands of Illinoisans who have claimed unemployment insurance benefits in 2020.

About 7.6 million Illinois adults and more than 3 million Illinois children will benefit from another round of relief checks. This relief will reach 85 percent of all Illinois adults and 83 percent of all Illinois children. 

An estimated $5 billion has been set aside for Illinois K-12 schools, $1.3 billion for higher education, $39 million for Illinois Head Start programs and $1.3 billion to support child care providers.

The bill also caters for housing, transportation among other things.

“Our nation has lost more than 520,000 Americans to COVID-19 and we simply can’t wait a minute longer to send urgent relief to Illinoisans and struggling families, small businesses and local governments across this country. We are dealing with a once-in-a-generation public health crisis and the Biden Administration’s American Rescue Plan that my Democratic colleagues and I passed today will help us meet this challenging moment," said Duckworth.

“It will immediately put money in the pockets of working families, provide more resources for hard-hit small businesses, help schools safely reopen, boost funding for local municipalities to hire more first responders, extend Pandemic Unemployment Assistance and improve testing as well as vaccine distribution programs so we can get more shots in the arms of Americans."

No Republican senator voted for the $1.9 trillion COVID relief package bill.