President Joe Biden will signal two extra govt orders on Friday—the most recent in a raft of actions he is taken with simply the stroke of his pen since taking workplace on Wednesday.
“The American folks cannot afford to attend—so many are hanging by a thread, they usually need assistance,” Biden’s prime financial adviser Brian Deese instructed Newsweek and different reporters in a preview of the anticipated orders. “We’re dedicated to doing all the pieces we will to offer that assist with this rapidly as attainable.”
One will direct federal companies to increase numerous types of emergency aid, as attainable with current authority. The second will enhance pay and supply extra protections for federal staff and contractors.
Deese stated each are supposed to be non permanent, pressing aid responses to the coronavirus pandemic that has killed greater than 405,000 folks in america and created an financial tailspin for hundreds of thousands of others.
“These actions are concrete and can present instant help to exhausting hit households,” Deese stated of the orders Biden will signal Friday afternoon. “They don’t seem to be sufficient they usually and and far, rather more is required.”
Biden is moreover pushing a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 aid package deal that might require approval from Congress, but it surely’s unclear how rapidly lawmakers will have the ability to hash out a ultimate negotiation and get the laws to Biden’s desk.
The 2 orders Friday come on prime of greater than two dozen different govt directives that Biden signed in his first 24-hours in workplace. Lots of them are supposed to tackle the coronavirus pandemic or undo actions taken in the course of the Trump administration. Biden signed orders to re-enter the Paris Local weather Accord, a multi-country effort to deal with local weather change; cease development of the Southern U.S. border wall; and revoke the allow for the Keystone XL pipeline, amongst different strikes.
Here is what the 2 economy-focused orders will do, primarily based on previews and summaries supplied earlier than the invoice signing:
COVID Financial Reduction Government Order
Biden will direct the U.S. Division of Agriculture to broaden emergency meals help applications. That would come with a rise in family meals stamps advantages to help hundreds of thousands affected by meals insecurity. There was a short lived small enhance as colleges shuttered due to the coronavirus final yr, however critics have stated it wasn’t sufficient to cowl the free faculty breakfast and lunch that kids would in any other case get. Biden’s order additionally recommends reevaluating the general construction of the way it determines regular meals stamps advantages.
“It would not replicate the financial realities that the majority struggling households face what once they’re attempting to both purchase or put together wholesome meals,” Deese stated.
For the Treasury Division, Biden’s order would instruct it to assessment why an estimated 8 million folks haven’t gotten previous stimulus funds and the way it may be resolved, and Biden plans to instruct the Division of Labor to designate that individuals who refuse to work due to unsafe circumstances can nonetheless qualify for unemployment insurance coverage.
Defending And Empowering Federal Employees And Contractors
Biden has pledged to help a rise within the federal minimal wage from the $7.25 charge set greater than a decade in the past. His govt order on Friday will begin that effort with federal staff and staff engaged on federal contracts.
Beneath the order, federal contracts will embrace a requirement that contractors pay their staff at the very least $15 an hour and supply emergency paid depart to staff.
Throughout the federal authorities itself, all companies will likely be instructed to assessment their pay scales and develop plans to get all staff at the very least to $15 an hour if they’re paid lower than that at the moment.
“These steps are designed to assist make sure the federal authorities is a mannequin employer … and to make it possible for after we are utilizing taxpayer {dollars}, by federal contracts, that we’re directing that to employers who give their staff the pay and advantages they’ve earned,” Deese stated.