American Rescue Plan Act Provisions to Help Children, Youth, Older Adults and Families

Last week, President Biden signed the American Rescue Plan Act into law. The $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package provides immediate relief for children, older adults, and families, works to address the racial and economic injustices that COVID-19 has exacerbated, cuts child poverty in half in 2021, and creates a National Technical Assistance Center on Grandfamilies and Kinship Families. The package includes many important provisions including:

National Technical Assistance Center on Grandfamilies and Kinship Care

• $10 million to establish a National Technical Assistance Center on Grandfamilies and Kinship Families to provide training, technical assistance and resources for government programs, nonprofits, and other community-based organizations, Tribes, and Tribal organizations that serve grand families and kinship families. See our full statement on the Technical Assistance Center here.

Direct Support for Families — Financial, Nutrition and Housing Assistance

• $1,400 Economic Impact Payments for millions of individuals and families. Those eligible will automatically receive economic impact payments of up to $1,400 per individuals or $2,800 for married couples plus an additional $1,400 per dependent claimed on a tax return. Normally, a taxpayer will qualify for the full amount if they have an adjusted gross income of up to $75,000 for singles and married persons filing a separate return, up to $112,500 for heads of household and up to $150,000 for married couples filing joint returns and surviving spouses. This includes children in mixed-status families, reaching an additional 2.2 million children with social security numbers whose parents do not receive these payments. The IRS has posted detailed information on these payments here.
• Expansion of the Child Tax Credit making it available to children in families with low or no income in a year and increasing the credit’s maximum amount per child, cutting the number of children in poverty by more than 40 percent. The credit amount is $3,600 for each child under 6 and $3,000 for each child 6–17 years old for households with single taxpayers earning up to $75,000 and married couples earning up to $150,000. This credit is available to grandparents and other relatives caring for children for at least half of the year.
• Funding for child, family, and older adult nutrition benefits and programs to reduce food insecurity, including significant investments in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). It provides Pandemic Electronic Transfer benefits to school-age and young children for the summer and the end of the COVID-19 crisis. It also provides additional support for nutrition programs for older adults and Native American communities under the Older Americans Act. Learn more about nutrition investments here.
• Housing and utility assistance to help people pay utility bills, keep people in their homes and to address homelessness during the pandemic. Learn more about the housing relief here.

Funding for Programs and Supports to Help Children, Youth, Older Adults and Families

• $350 million for the Child Abuse Treatment and Prevention Act (CAPTA): $100 for Title I — State Grants for grants to support state child protective services programs and infrastructure. $250 million for Title II — Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention for grants directly to communities to provide community-driven services to support and strengthen families so children can remain safe.
• $450 million for the Family Violence Prevention and Services Act for formula grants, the national domestic violence hotline, and support for survivors of sexual assault.
• $10 million for the National Child Traumatic Stress Network to improve access to services for traumatized children, their families and communities throughout the United States.
• $30 million for Project AWARE to build capacity in schools to address trauma and mental health needs.
• $800 million in Education Stabilization Funds focused on homeless children and youth for grants to identify homeless children and youth and to provide them with wrap-around services and assistance to enable them to attend school and participate in school activities.
• $130 billion for K-12 education to ensure schools can implement the safety measures they need to reopen safely
• $1 billion to strengthen vaccine confidence and improve vaccination rates for COVID-19 and other vaccine-preventable diseases, including funding to implement the AAP-championed VACCINES Act. The bill includes additional billions in funding to help distribute and administer COVID-19 vaccines more quickly and to provide crucial medical equipment and supplies, testing and staffing to stop the spread of the virus.
• $80 million for the Pediatric Mental Health Care Access Program, which increases access to mental health services for children and adolescents. The program provides funding for 21 states and will now have sufficient funding to award grants to remaining states, DC and the territories for five years.
• $1.43 Billion for programs authorized in the Older Americans Act Including:

$750 million for nutrition services including home-delivered meals,

$460 million for supportive services, including COVID-19 vaccination outreach and efforts to address social isolation,

$145 million for the National Family Caregiver Support Program, which provides caregiver counseling, support groups, training, and respite care,

$25 million for nutrition and supportive services for Native American communities.

• An additional $1 billion for AmeriCorps and its many programs to support the agency’s ongoing efforts to strengthen community response efforts to the COVID-19 pandemic and to

Expand national service programming into new communities, and stabilize existing AmeriCorps and AmeriCorps Seniors programs

Increase the AmeriCorps living allowance, making national service more accessible and inclusive

Increase the diversity and cultural experience of those serving in communities across the country and grow the number of AmeriCorps and AmeriCorps Seniors positions