Recently, Congress passed an amendment to the CARES Act that provides $900 billion in COVID-related economic relief. We thought members may have questions regarding the amendment and how it affects their finances. Our financial advisor, Evan Kulak, has provided some information regarding the second COVID stimulus package. Please find a summary of the key provisions below that are most likely to affect members. As always, please feel free to reach out with any questions or thoughts.
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Additional federal unemployment funds
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The act extends unemployment benefits to everyone eligible for an extra 11 weeks.
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The act also adds a $300 per week federal benefit on top of workers’ state unemployment benefits through March 14, 2021 (or April 5 if you haven’t reached your maximum benefit by March 14).
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Paycheck Protection Program
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If you got a PPP loan already, you have to have 300 or fewer employees and be able to show a 25% or more reduction in your gross receipts during any quarter in 2020 compared with the same quarter last year.
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Companies, non-profits, self-employed people are eligible for a loan if they have 500 or fewer employees, up to a cap of $10 million.
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The act provides more than $284 billion to reactivate the Paycheck Protection Program to provide low-interest-rate loans through the Small Business Administration (SBA).
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Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL)
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The act also adds another $20 billion for grants for business owners for COVID-19 relief
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Emergency housing aid
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The act adds $25 billion for emergency rental aid and extends the national moratorium on some evictions and foreclosures through February 28, 2021.
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Student loans
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After the first CARES Act passed in March 2020, most federal student loan payments were in "administrative forbearance"—meaning mandatory minimum payments were paused with no interest accruing—and collections on default were halted through January 31, 2020. Then On January 20, 2021, the COVID-19 emergency relief measures were extended on Department of Education-owned federal student loans through September 30, 2021. (This information has been updated since the email sent to members on February 5.)