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Where $5 Trillion in Pandemic Stimulus Money Went
On the outset of the pandemic, governments used the funds largely to cowl virus-related prices.
Because the months dragged on, they discovered themselves masking surprising shortfalls created by the pandemic, together with misplaced income from parking garages and museums the place attendance dropped off. Additionally they funded longstanding priorities like upgrading sewer methods and different infrastructure tasks.
Okay-12 faculties used early funds to transition to distant studying, they usually obtained $122 billion from the American Rescue Plan that was supposed to assist them pay salaries, facilitate vaccinations and improve buildings and air flow methods to scale back the virus’s unfold. At the very least 20 p.c have to be spent on serving to college students get well academically from the pandemic.
Whereas not all the state and native assist has been spent, the scope of the funding has been expansive:
Utah put aside $100 million for “water conservation” because it faces historic drought circumstances.
Texas has designated $100 million to “preserve” the Bob Bullock Texas State Historical past Museum in Austin.
The San Antonio Unbiased Faculty District in Texas plans to spend $9.4 million on growing employees compensation, giving all everlasting full-time staff a 2 p.c pay increase and lifting minimal wages to $16 an hour, from $15.
Alabama authorised $400 million to assist fund 4,000-bed prisons.
Summerville, S.C., allotted greater than $1.3 million for premium pay for important employees.
What was the influence?
The goal of the cash was to forestall the sort of painful funds cuts that state and native governments have been pressured to make within the wake of the Nice Recession, when revenues plunged and prices soared, a recipe that extended America’s sluggish restoration and hampered some native economies for years.
Economists largely agree that the cash helped native governments shoulder vital pandemic-related prices, and plenty of governments prevented deep funds cuts. Many states have even reported surpluses.
However federal guidelines prevented native governments from utilizing CARES Act funds to fill funds shortfalls, and state and native governments wound up slashing a whole lot of hundreds of public sector jobs anyway. A number of states have sued the Biden administration over restrictions it imposed on the usage of funds.
What hasn’t been spent?
A good portion has but to be spent, partly as a result of greater than $100 billion stays to be distributed by the Treasury Division. Solely 19 states, plus Washington, D.C., obtained their whole allotments of American Rescue Plan funds in 2021. A second batch will likely be distributed this 12 months.
Governments have till 2026 to spend the funds, and disagreements over the place the cash ought to go and who has authority to spend it have slowed planning in some communities.
Faculty districts have till January 2025 to spend the cash allotted to them. However even with a number of years left, faculties have voiced considerations about assembly that deadline as many districts battle with labor shortages and supply-chain delays.