After passage of a $1.9 trillion stimulus package, the first major legislative victory for President Joe Biden, he headed to one of the places that helped get him into office: southeastern Pennsylvania.
Specifically, he came to Chester to visit Smith Flooring, a Black-owned business with a unionized workforce that received Paycheck Protection Program loans earlier in the pandemic and will qualify for additional benefits under the newly passed federal stimulus, including a tax credit designed for employee retention.
“People hardest-hit are in minority communities,” Biden said during his visit to the majority-Black Delaware County city. “The rate at which they get COVID is higher, death rate is higher.”
In the hours before the president was set to swing through Chester, local business owners waited restlessly to see if he might stop by, ducking in and out of each other’s shops to exchange tips about the visit.
On Avenue of the States, one of Chester’s main streets, Emmanuel Fitzpatrick, 48, was stationed outside his studio space with two of his friends and artistic collaborators, Kenneth “Picasso” Hunt and Devon Walls.
Fitzpatrick and Hunt were working on paintings — Hunt’s an abstract, and Fitzpatrick’s a portrait of Biden. They support the new president, though Fitzpatrick noted “it’s too early right now” to know exactly how he’ll do.
Biden hopes this trip, which is part of a broader communications strategy including Vice President Kamala Harris and first lady Jill Biden, shows people that he is doing something.
Under the stimulus plan, Pennsylvania stands to get about $7.3 billion for statewide expenses. Local governments, like Chester’s, will get their own shares — about $5.7 billion altogether.
One of the most profound changes under the law is a new tax credit for families with children. For the next year, the program will give parents $300 per month for each child under six, and $250 monthly for children under 18. Those payments begin to decrease for individual filers who make more than $75,000 a year or couples who make more than $150,000.
There are also specific benefits for businesses — the main talking point in Biden’s Pennsylvania visit. The existing Paycheck Protection Program will be re-upped with $7.25 billion, though competition for that money may also increase, as larger nonprofits are now eligible.
Along with an extension to the employee-retention tax credit, which gives businesses per-employee tax breaks if they had significant revenue declines, other new tax credits include one that gives businesses benefits if they hire people who were unemployed during the pandemic.
