NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- Congressional leaders reached a final agreement on a $900 billion COVID relief package, including direct payments to Americans, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced Sunday.
“More help is on the way,” McConnell said on the Senate floor. "Moments ago, in consultation with our committees, the four leaders of the Senate and the House finalized an agreement."
The package includes $600 stimulus checks for most Americans, enhanced unemployment benefits of $300 per week and subsidies for hard-hit businesses. Also included are funds for schools, health care providers and renters facing eviction.
Lawmakers have been working for weeks to seal a deal on a second relief package as the virus surges across the nation and the economy struggles.
The House was expected to vote on the legislation very late Sunday or Monday. Senate action would follow.
The final agreement is the largest spending measure yet. It combines COVID-19 relief with a $1.4 trillion government-wide funding plan and lots of other unrelated measures on taxes, health, infrastructure and education.
The relief package would be the first significant legislative response to the pandemic since the $1.8 trillion CARES Act passed virtually unanimously in March.
Late-breaking decisions would limit the $300 per week bonus jobless benefits — one half the supplemental federal unemployment benefit provided under the CARES Act — to 10 weeks instead of 16 weeks as before. The direct $600 stimulus payment to most people is also half the March payment, subject to the same income limits in which an individual’s payment begins to phase out after $75,000.
In the meantime, with a government shutdown deadline looming at midnight Sunday, lawmakers faced the reality of needing to enact another temporary spending bill — the second in as many days — to avert a shutdown of non-essential activities by federal agencies on Monday.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.