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On Friday, Joe Biden will sign a pair of executive orders aimed at providing immediate relief to American families facing the economic toll of the Covid-19 pandemic and expanding security protections for federal workers.
The first action is aimed at food insecurity, expanding nutrition programs for low-income families and children. The order would also try to clarify a rule to ensure that unemployed Americans could still get unemployment insurance if they were denied a job that would endanger their health.
The second order aims to expand protections for federal workers by restoring collective bargaining rights and promoting a federal minimum wage of $ 15. To do so, Biden will commission agencies to do a review of federal workers who earn less than $ 15 an hour and make recommendations to increase their wages.
“The American people can’t afford to wait,” Brian Deese, Biden’s chief economic adviser, said in a call to reporters. “Many are hanging by a thread, they need help and we are committed to doing everything we can to provide them with that help as quickly as possible.”
The latest executive action comes a day after a Labor Department report showed unemployment claims remained at historically high levels, with 900,000 Americans applying for unemployment benefits last week. The figures reflected the magnitude of the economic challenges Biden inherited, amid a resurgence of the coronavirus this winter.
Friday’s actions are part of an explosion of executive orders and directives that Biden has taken since he took over the presidency.
Hours after his inauguration, Biden signed an executive order extending a federal break on evictions until the end of March, a move that will protect millions of Americans struggling to pay rent amid the pandemic. He also directed federal agencies to extend the moratorium on federal-guaranteed foreclosures and called on the education department to extend the freeze on federal student loan payments until the end of September.
On Thursday, it unveiled a Covid-19 national “war” strategy aimed at growing vaccine production, creating guidelines for reopening schools and businesses, and imposing new requirements on the mask industry.
Biden has long argued that economic recovery is related to the fight against coronavirus, a completely different approach to its predecessor, which urged states to lift restrictions even as infections increased.
The centerpiece of Biden’s plan to alleviate economic crises is a $ 1.9 million emergency aid package called the American Rescue Plan, which includes 1,400 direct payments to Americans, an extension of the benefits of temporarily high unemployment and billions of dollars for a national vaccination program.
Republicans are already opposed to the cost of the legislation and raise doubts about whether Biden will be able to attract bipartisan support as he expected. Several Republicans questioned the need for an additional stimulus package weeks after approving a $ 900 billion coronavirus relief bill.
Deese stressed that the president’s unilateral decrees only offered emergency aid and were not a substitute for congressional action.
“These actions are concrete and will provide immediate support to the affected families,” he said. “They’re not enough and they need a lot, a lot more.”