Biden plan calls for $1,400 direct payments, expanded tax credits

President-elect Joe Biden on Thursday is unveiling a coronavirus relief proposal that would include stimulus payments of $1,400 per person, which would allow Americans to receive a total of $2,000 between the payments in the plan and the $600 payments authorized by legislation enacted in December.

The proposal comes after Biden expressed interest in increasing the payments in the December law to $2,000 ahead of the Senate runoffs in Georgia earlier this month, which Democrats won. Congressional Democrats have also said that providing direct payments of $2,000 is a top priority of theirs.

The incoming administration said in a summary of the plan that it would expand eligibility to adult dependents, who are not currently eligible for the stimulus payments that have already been enacted. The summary also says that all mixed citizenship status households would be eligible for the payments.

The incoming administration did not specify the income parameters for the payments. For both the $600 payments and the $1,200 payments Congress authorized last March, individuals with income of up to $75,000 and married couples with income of up to $150,000 received the full amount, and the amounts phased out above those thresholds.

President Trump has called for the $600 payments to be upped to $2,000, and several Republicans have expressed support for doing so as well. But it’s unclear how many Republicans will support Biden’s overall proposal, which has a price tag of $1.9 trillion.

Biden’s plan also calls for temporary expansions of the child tax credit (CTC), the earned income tax credit (EITC) and child care tax credits, in an effort to help low- and middle-income households.

The president-elect is proposing that the CTC be fully refundable this year so that the lowest-income households can receive the full value of the credit. He’s also calling for the maximum credit amount to be increased from $2,000 per child to $3,600 for children under 6 and $3,000 for other children. And he would make 17-year-olds eligible for the credit.

Biden is calling for a one-year expansion of the EITC that would include increasing the maximum amount for childless adults, raising the income limit for the credit and expanding eligibility for older workers. 

Expanding the credits is a key priority for many congressional Democrats, and there has also been some interest in the past from Republicans in expanding the credits as well.

– updated at 6:26 p.m.