Dear John,
WHAT’S NEXT FOR CORONAVIRUS RELIEF?
In the ten days since the passage of the CARES Act, prospects for a fourth round of coronavirus relief package have varied widely, but it now appears Congressional leaders and the President again may be converging on another legislative package that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has already dubed “CARES 2.”
Consensus may be forming to provide additional funds for health care, states and local communities and direct aid to individual taxpayers and small business (at least in the form of substantially increasing funding for forgiveable loans under the already overwhelmed Paycheck Protection Program). But the signals from Capitol Hill indicate that several priorities for which the American Sustainable Business Council has advocated may be left for subsequent bills or left on the table altogether.
EXPAND FAMILY AND MEDICAL LEAVE
One major example is the Providing Americans Insured Days of Leave (PAID Leave) Act, sponsored by Senators Patty Murray (D-WA) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) to fill some of the gaps in the emergency sick leave and family leave provisions in the Families First Coronavirus Response Act which took effect this month. That bill covered only workers at companies with 500 or fewer employees and permitted companies with 50 or fewer employees to seek a waiver, leaving millions of Americans without protection. New guidance from the Labor Department effectively broadly accepted waivers for those with the smallest employers, according to news reports. In all more than 75 percent of American workers are employed at companies that qualify for exemptions under Families First, demonstrating the real need for further action.
SIGN ON TO SUPPORT ADDING PAID LEAVE ACT TO ANY
NEW CORONAVIRUS RESPONSE BILL
ASBC has long advocated for stronger paid family leave protections, but this coronavirus crisis is a frightening demonstration of that need. When all employees have time to heal themselves, or time to care for sick family members, productivity increases, profits rise, our economy grows and our nation becomes stronger. To make this happen, workers need to have access to paid leave so they have support while dealing with personal or family health issues, and a job to come back to once the issues have been resolved.
An interesting and relevant report in today’s New York Times at responses to the 1918 influenza pandemic found that cities that “went all in on social distancing… emerged stronger for it,” with lower mortality rates, but stronger economic growth in the post pandemic era.
SAVE OUR ECONOMY NOW!
Beyond expanded family and medical leave, The American Sustainable Business Council, the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA) and other business organizations have developed “Five Steps to Keep American Business Alive.” We believe these are vital to help small and mid-sized local and independent businesses in all communities across the United States survive this crisis.
MORE HELP FOR THOSE WHO FEED US
Additionally, action is necessary to ensure the resilience of the small-scale and mid-sized farmers, fishers, and ranchers that feed our communities and provide the goods which many local businesses depend on. We applaud the assistance that was given to agriculture and the fishing industry in the last stimulus package, but just like the $23 billion given to food producers for the loss of export markets since 2018, it is likely the majority of small and medium-scale food producers will see little of this relief if the USDA and NOAA are left to control how the funds are distributed without a reformed system of fund allocation. The closure of thousands of school districts, restaurants, and farmers markets across the country has been a blow to these producers that rely on local markets but no farmer should lose their farm and no fisherman should lose their boat because of the crisis sparked by COVID-19.
We call on USDA and NOAA to ensure that direct payments to producers are equitably allocated based on revenue losses, with particular attention to family-scale operations, limited resource producers, farms operated by farmers of color, and tribal nations who have often fallen through the cracks of federal farm and fishery policy. Furthermore, given the scale of this economic crisis for family-scale producers, we urge Congress to prioritize small and mid-sized farming and fishing through the support of the Local Agriculture Market Program, debt forgiveness for small-scale producers, and access to zero-percent interest operating loans so that producers who have lost access to markets can bridge the gap until those markets reopen.
Even as talks continue among federal leaders, no floor action is scheduled for several weeks. Neither the House or Senate is scheduled to return until April 20, but even that date is subject to postponement and Congressional leaders are still trying to determine how to carry out votes without members having to travel to DC and appear together in the Capitol.
But with all the ideas circulating, ASBC would like to hear from you. Please take five minutes to complete this brief survey about your ideas on a possible fourth legislative coronavirus response package. We are asking you to include your name, but we will keep all individual responses completely confidential.
