American Rescue Plan

The American Rescue Plan included a program meant to keep small businesses owned by disadvantaged groups in the restaurant industry open during the height of the pandemic. The $28.8 billion grant program—known as the Restaurant Revitalization Fund—gave money to over 100,000 businesses, with some grants going as high as $10 million.

Covid Stimulus Watch now includes recipient data from the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). We’ve added more than 123,000 entries that amount to almost $8 billion across 15 ARPA programs.

The city of Syracuse, NY is one of the few smaller localities taking the time to track American Rescue Plan spending for its residents.

The U.S. Treasury recently issued its final rule on the eligible uses of the American Rescue Plan Act’s (ARPA) Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund (CSLFRF). The guidelines also clarify what funds may not be used for. Notably, the Treasury said they can’t be used for general economic development purposes.

The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), part of the original federal stimulus package, the CARES Act, was meant to keep workers on the job and small businesses alive during a time of financial uncertainty. But did it work? The answer to that may be unclear, but nearly all the loans - over 80% - have been forgiven.

We can make New Year’s Resolutions for other people, right? Because I’m about to make some for the good people across the country who will continue spending about $500 billion in CARES Act and American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) money, well into 2022.

Despite a self-congratulatory blog by New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, the state’s COVID-19 Relief Program Tracker fails Good Jobs First’s transparency test.

Since stimulus funds started going out, Good Jobs First and other open government advocates have been pushing for greater transparency and accountability for how trillions in CARES Act and ARPA funds are being spent. Some states, we’ve noted, have made questionable if not outright poor choices.

In addition to aid like unemployment insurance and business loans, Uncle Sam is disbursing hundreds of billions to help the economy recover from impacts caused by a global pandemic and widespread economic shutdown. The Delta variant has sparked renewed hardships.