WASHINGTON _ Senate Republicans on Monday rolled out the major pieces of a $1 trillion economic relief plan that would provide a second round of $1,200 coronavirus stimulus payments to many American adults and slash enhanced federal unemployment payments from $600 a week to $200.
Senate Republicans have struggled for days to hammer out internal differences in crafting their long-anticipated COVID-19 economic relief plan, which they released Monday afternoon as several separate individual bills. But their unity may not last long, particularly after compromises are made with Democrats, who passed their own, more generous relief bill in the House in May that includes $1,200 checks and an extension of the $600 unemployment benefit.
The Republican plan provides the new round of stimulus checks to adults and $500 per dependent, regardless of age. The full amount is expected to go to people with taxable incomes of up to $75,000. It would be gradually phased out for people with taxable income up to $99,000; those above that income level would be ineligible for the payments.
Democrats proposed the same income scale, but called for $1,200-per-child payments for up to three children.
On the $600 federal unemployment benefits that many laid-off workers have been relying for months, Republicans would cut the subsidy to $200 a week through September.
After that, Republicans want states to be ready to set up a system in which the federal subsidy would not exceed 70% of the laid-off worker's previous salary, with a cap of $500 a week. Republicans and some employers have complained that the flat $600-a-week payment provides many low-paid workers with more money than they had received while working, making it harder for companies to lure them back to their old jobs.
"We have produced a tailored and targeted draft that will cut right to the heart of three distinct crises facing our country _ getting kids back in school, getting workers back to work and winning the health care fight against the virus," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Monday.
