How Would Joe Biden Boost The Economy? A Look At His COVID Relief Packages And Tax Plan

As the U.S. economy continues to struggle during the pandemic, Joe Biden's economic plan would push for two COVID-19 relief packages in 2021,

Biden campaign policy director Stef Feldman told Axios that the first stimulus package would provide “relief to working families” to help them put “food on the table” and pay bills.

"The short-term relief needs to get out the door as quickly as possible," Feldman said. "That money will be directed and targeted under a Biden administration to middle-class and lower-class families, will be targeted to our smallest businesses instead of just the big corporations that have the best connections to big banks."

Biden’s campaign website states he would push for additional stimulus checks, along with student loan forgiveness and an increase in Social Security payments. He would also call for fiscal relief to help states deal with the pandemic.

The second bill would be intended to help the economy “build back better,” a slogan heard often by Biden on the campaign trail. This bill would require more intensive negotiations with Congress, and would likely focus on improving the nation’s infrastructure.

Congressional leaders and the Trump administration have not managed to pass another round of economic relief. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said that a package would come at the beginning of next year.

Biden's economic plan would face roadblocks if Democrats fail to gain seats in Congress, as a Republican-majority Senate would likely obstruct economic bills. Republicans in 2009 were fiercely resistant to President Barack Obama's stimulus plan as the country faced an extensive economic crisis.

It's unclear if Republicans in 2021 would be receptive to any type of growth packages despite calls for more stimulus from the Federal Reserve and during a pandemic that could linger for several more months.

"The recovery will be stronger and move faster if monetary policy and fiscal policy continue to work side by side to provide support to the economy until it is clearly out of the woods,” said Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell in a recent speech to the National Association for Business Economics.

In September, only 661,000 jobs were added to the economy, the smallest monthly job gain since May. Cases of COVID-19 have spiked across the country, putting restaurants and several other industries at risk.

Thirteen Nobel Prize-winning economists in September backed Biden’s economic agenda, which includes raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy. Biden says he would not raise taxes on annual income of less than $400,000. His plan also includes a capital gains hike to 39.6% for investment income above $1 million. He would direct $265 a year in additional benefits for average Americans.

“This has been a hugely unequal recession. And the high-income people, and big corporations, many of them have not had a recession at all,” Austan Goolsbee, a former chief of the White House Council of Economic Advisers under Obama, told the New York Times this month.