The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, also called the COVID-19 Stimulus Package or American Rescue Plan, is a US$1.9 trillion economic stimulus bill passed by the 117th United States Congress and signed into law by President Joe Biden on March 11, 2021, to speed up the country's recovery from the economic and health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and recession.

[8] The American Rescue Plan Act provided for direct economic stimulus payments to individual taxpayers with incomes of $75,000 or less.

The Act included $300 billion in unemployment benefits that were scheduled to extend through Labor Day 2021, as well as an expanded child tax credit.

Even though Trump called for Congress to pass a bill increasing direct payments from $600 to $2,000, then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell blocked the effort.

[17] Prior to the Georgia Senate runoffs, Biden said that the direct payments of $2,000 would be passed only if Democratic candidates Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock won;[18] the promise of comprehensive COVID-19 relief legislation was reported as a factor in their eventual victories.

[21] On the same day, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer introduced a budget resolution co-sponsored by Bernie Sanders as a step to pass the legislation without support from the Republican Party.

[30] The United States Senate voted 50–49 to open debate on the resolution, which would allow Democrats to pass the relief package without support from Republicans through the process of reconciliation.

[38] One of the many non-binding budget amendments in the vote-a-rama session was meant to prohibit people who are in the country illegally from receiving pandemic relief checks.

[39] The amendment received criticism from progressive immigration activist Greisa Martínez Rosas and Senator Mazie Hirono (D-HI).

[40] The White House later stated that it would continue to support legislation that would give all otherwise eligible individuals with social security numbers stimulus checks.

[48] On February 26, the House passed the trillion dollar relief package by a vote of 219–212; two Democrats, Kurt Schrader (OR) and Jared Golden (ME) joined all Republicans in opposition.

After hours of negotiations between top Senate Democrats and the White House, Manchin stated he would back a revised version of Carper's amendment which would cut off the unemployment benefits at September 6.

Biden doubted that his desire to increase the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour would be included in the final coronavirus relief package.

While recent polling indicates that support for increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour ranges from 53 to 60%,[60] Democratic Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema opposed this provision and threatened to derail the bill over this issue.

[61] Progressive Democrats and liberal groups urged Harris to overrule MacDonough (which she has the constitutional power to do as president of the Senate) or for Senate Democratic leadership to replace her (which the Republicans did once before, firing Robert Dove in 2001 after he made a series of rulings blocking tax cuts from being considered under the 51-vote budget reconciliation process); however, neither course was taken.

[66][67] Republican Senators Mitt Romney and Tom Cotton introduced their own bill, which would raise the minimum wage to $10, phasing in gradually to 2025.

Businesses would also be required to use the E-Verify system so to ensure that workers paid the higher wages are legal immigrants and eligible to work.

Adult workers would have to provide a photo ID, states would be incentivized to share driver's-license data with the system, and the federal government would make more of an effort to block or suspend misused Social Security numbers.

[76] Preliminary injunctions issued in federal district court cases halted section 1005 payments, which related to socially disadvantaged farmers and ranchers.

[115] The bill contains little direct aid to high income-earners, who largely retained their jobs during the COVID-19 economic shock and bolstered their savings.

[119] A March 2022 study released by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco estimated that U.S. fiscal support measures designed to counteract the severity of the pandemic's economic effect (among them, the American Rescue Plan and the 2020 CARES Act) may have raised core inflation about 3 percentage points by the end of 2021, noting that this estimate falls "in the upper range of findings from other recent research".

At the same time, the study notes that these measures may have prevented "outright deflation and slower economic growth, the consequences of which would have been harder to manage".

[126] Furthermore, Biden noted that "[a]ll of a sudden, many of them have rediscovered fiscal restraint and the concern for the deficits" in reference to the Trump administrations increase in the national debt following expansive tax cuts and COVID-19 mitigation spending.

[126] Republican mayors such as Jerry Dyer of Fresno, California, Francis Suarez of Miami, David Holt of Oklahoma City, and Betsy Price of Fort Worth, Texas, expressed their support for the plan.

"[128] Over 150 CEOs of major companies expressed support for the Biden stimulus plan in a letter and urged Congress to pass it.

[131][132] Dave Yost, the Republican Ohio Attorney General, sued the Biden administration over the provision of the Act that creates a $350 billion fund to help state and local governments pay first responders and other COVID-19-related expenses.

"[133][134][135] Clinton Administration Treasury Secretary and Harvard University President Lawrence Summers called the bill "the least responsible macroeconomic policy we've had in the last 40 years," arguing the law would lead to substantial inflation (and possibly a recession, if the Federal Reserve responded by raising interest rates).

[143] A Monmouth University poll found that 62% of Americans approve of the stimulus package,[140] with 92% of Democrats, 56% of independents, and 33% of Republicans supporting the legislation.

[144] CBS News released a poll on March 12, which showed that 75% of Americans approved the stimulus bill, including 77% of independents, 46% of Republicans, and 94% of Democrats.