unemployment benefits through the end of september but would cut the benefits from $400 to $300. the amendment also did not tax the first $10,200 of unemployment benefits. senator joe manchin, a key vote in the senate, disagreed with carper's amendment, stalling the senate amendment process for hours while his democratic colleagues and the white house pressured him to support carper's amendment. manchin had initially signalled he would support a gop-backed amendment by portman to cut off the unemployment benefits at july. after hours of negotiations between top senate democrats and the white house, manchin stated he would back a revised version of carper's amendment which would cut off the unemployment benefits at september 6. the final vote was 50 to 49 on party lines, and the bill was sent back to the house for final passage. minimum wage provision president biden doubted that his desire to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour would be included in the final coronavirus relief package. biden predicted that senate rules for budget reconciliation would prevent the increase from going forward. while recent polling indicates that support for increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour ranges from 53 to 60%, democratic senators joe manchin and kyrsten sinema opposed this provision and threatened to derail the bill over this issue. on february 25, the day before the full house vote, the senate parliamentarian elizabeth macdonough ruled that the proposal to add the minimum wage provision to the stimulus bill was not compatible with the senate's budget reconciliation process. pelosi stated later that day that the house would still approve the bill with the minimum wage raise, although it would have to be amended out in the final senate bill to comply with the parliamentarian's ruling. progressive democrats and liberal groups urged harris to overrule macdonough (which she has the constitutional power to do as president of the senate) or for senate democratic leadership to replace her (which the republicans did once before, firing robert dove in 2001 after he made a series of rulings blocking tax cuts from being considered under the 51-vote budget reconciliation process); however, neither course was taken. on march 5, eight members of the senate democratic caucus joined all 50 republican senators to reject an amendment raised by senator sanders to increase the minimum wage to $15 in the bill. in a budget analysis released in february 2021, the congressional budget office found that increasing the minimum wage to $15 would lift 900,000 people out of poverty and cumulatively raise the wage of all affected people by $333 billion, but also could increase the cumulative budget deficit, over the next decade, to $54 billion (and add $16 billion in interest costs) and reduce employment by 0.9% (1.4 million jobs) over four years. republican senators mitt romney and tom cotton introduced their own bill, which would raise the minimum wage to $10, phasing in gradually to 2025. the minimum wage would biennially rise with inflation, indexed to the chained consumer price index. businesses would also be required to use the e-verify system so to ensure that workers paid the higher wages are legal immigrants and eligible to work. adult workers would have to provide a photo id, states would be incentivized to share driver's-license data with the system, and the federal government would make more of an effort to block or suspend misused social security numbers. other excluded provisions the house-passed bill included $1.5 million to cover operating shortfalls on the new york-ontario seaway international bridge (caused by border closures), and $140 million for the silicon valley bart extension. both provisions were removed from the senate bill due to republican opposition. final passage house speaker nancy pelosi (left) and senate majority leader chuck schumer (right) at a ceremony to celebrate passage of the bill on march 10, 2021, the house passed the senate bill on a near party-line (jared golden voted against) vote of 220–211 (concurring in the senate amendments), sending the bill to president biden for his signature. biden signed the bill the following day, on march 11, 2021. on march 15, 2021, the white house announced that gene sperling will oversee the implementation of the bill. following the signing, biden and his top messengers kicked off a "help is here" tour across the country to promote the legislation, with harris visiting a covid-19 vaccination site in las vegas and first lady jill biden visiting an elementary school in new jersey. on march 16, biden promoted the bill in chester, pennsylvania. president joe biden signing the bill into law as vice president kamala harris (left) watches amendment preliminary injunctions issued in federal district court cases halted section 1005 payments, which related to socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers. section 1005 was repealed by the inflation reduction act of 2022. key elements the act also allocates $60 billion to counties and $10 billion for a coronavirus capital projects fund. (the bill initially passed by the house would have instead allocated $65 billion to counties and $65 billion to municipalities; rather, the senate formula was adopted). key elements and provisions of the act include: employment extending expanded unemployment benefits with a $300 weekly supplement through labor day (september 6, 2021), preventing benefits from expiring on march 31, 2021 most democrats favored a higher amount (with the bill initially passed by the house providing for $400 weekly supplement) and some favored a longer duration (through early october); however, the final bill contained a scaled-back provision, at the insistence of senator joe manchin of west virginia, and other moderate senate democrats. the act makes the first $10,200 in unemployment benefits for 2020 not taxable for households with incomes below $150,000, thus avoiding the risk of many workers incurring surprise federal tax liability. $1,400 direct economic stimulus payments to individuals. under pressure from manchin, biden agreed to have the direct payment start to phase out for high-income taxpayers, including some who received stimulus checks in previous stimulus rounds. the stimulus benefit begins to phase out for taxpayers making $75,000 for individuals, $112,500 for single parents, and $150,000 for couples; taxpayers making more than $80,000 for individuals, $120,000 for single parents, and $160,000 for households will not receive any payment. (house democrats and biden had favored less stringent caps; the bill initially passed by the house set income caps $100,000 for individuals and $200,000 for couples). unlike in past rounds of stimulus payments, otherwise eligible adult dependents will receive payments, including college students, ssi recipients, and ssdi recipients. emergency paid leave for over 100 million americans the act provides a tax credit, through october 1, 2021, to employers who choose to offer paid sick leave and paid family leave benefits. however, the act did not require employers to provide the benefit, as biden initially proposed. extends a 15% increase in food stamp benefits (the increase, passed in previous rounds of stimulus; was set to expire at the end of june 2021; the bill extends it through september 2021). tax provisions expands the child tax credit from $2000 per child, by allowing qualifying families to offset, for the 2021 tax year, $3,000 per child up to age 17 and $3,600 per child under age. the bill expanded the credit to families with very low-incomes or no taxable income who did not previously qualify because of the minimum income requirement, while the size of the benefit will gradually diminish for single filers earning more than $75,000 per year, or married couples making more than $150,000 a year. additionally, this credit is now fully refundable, and half of the benefit can be sent out to eligible households in 2021 in the form of monthly payments of $250-$300 per child. senator mitt romney of utah introduced a similar bill four days earlier, but did not vote in favor of the bill. expands the child and dependent care credit by making the credit fully refundable and increasing the maximum benefit to $4,000 for one eligible individual and $8,000 for two or more eligible individuals. additionally, the value of this credit will now be based on 50% of the value of eligible expenses. the income limit for receiving this credit is also increased to $125,000 for households. these changes are also for 2021 only. expands the earned income tax credit by removing the upper age limit and lowering the lower age limit to 19. the maximum benefit for adults not claiming a qualifying child will also be increased to $1,502. these provisions are for 2021 only. a permanent change was made to raise the limit on investment income from $3,650 to $10,000, furthermore indexed by inflation; and to allow adults with children who do not qualify to claim the credit, to claim it only for themselves. forgiven student loan debt is made tax-free, should biden or congress decide to cancel any debt. reduction of reporting requirement threshold (1099-k) for third party settlement organizations (e.g. paypal) from over $20,000 and 200 transactions to over $600 and no minimum number of transaction, effective from tax year 2022. this is expected to impact gig workers, independent contractors, casual ebay sellers, among others. this amendment is projected to generate $8.4 billion over the next decade. three tax increases on large corporations and wealthy individuals, collectively raising $60 billion in revenue. these are: limits publicly traded companies' ability to deduct executive compensation (for employees more than $1 million) from their corporate taxes (will generate $6 billion in tax revenue). repeals an obscure provision in the tax code that gave multinational corporations additional discretion in accounting for interest expenses (will generate $22 billion in tax revenue). extends "loss limitation" restrictions on unincorporated businesses (will generate $31 billion in tax revenue) grants to small businesses, specifically: $28.6 billion for the restaurant revitalization fund, a new grant program for restaurants and bars to meet payroll and other expenses. individual businesses will be eligible for $5 million each. $15 billion for emergency injury disaster loans (a long-term, low-interest loan program of the small business administration); priority for some funds would go to "severely impacted small businesses with fewer than 10 workers". an additional $7 billion for the paycheck protection program, and an expansion of the eligibility criteria to some non-profit organizations previously excluded from the program. $3 billion for a payroll support program for aviation manufacturers. the industry itself will be responsible for funding half of the program, and the program will last six months. $1.25 billion in funding for the shuttered venue operators grant for music halls and other concert venues $175 million for a community navigator program to reach out to eligible businesses. funding for the recovery startup provision of the employee retention tax credit (ertc), a refundable payroll tax credit. small businesses that launch a new offering after february 15, 2020, can claim up to $7,000 per employee per quarter in q3/q4 2021, capped at $100,000. state, local, and tribal government aid $350 billion to help state, local, and tribal governments bridge budget shortfalls and mitigate the fiscal shock. a total of $195 billion would be allocated among the states and the district of columbia, and the tribes and territories would be allocated about $25 billion. education $122 billion for k-12 schools, to safely reopen most schools within 100 days. t k-12 school funds may be used to improve ventilation in school buildings, reduce class sizes to make social distancing possible, purchase personal protective equipment, and hire support staff. at least half of the money to colleges and universities must go to emergency grants to students. 20% of school funding must be directed to programs to help counteract "learning loss" for students who missed school during the pandemic. almost $40 billion for colleges and universities, including: over $10 billion to over 1,000 community colleges over $2.7 billion to historically black colleges and universities (hbcus) over $190 million to tribally controlled colleges and universities (tccus) about $11 billion to hispanic-serving institutions (hsis) about $5 billion to asian american and native american pacific islander-serving institutions (aanapisis) almost $1 billion to predominantly black institutions (pbis) housing $21.6 billion for rental assistance programs. this fund will provide money to states and local governments, which will then provide grants to eligible households. these grants can be used to pay for rental assistance as well as utility fees. $10 billion