House COVID Bill Includes Paying Federal Employees Up to $21K if Kids Have No School
The House of Representatives’ “American Rescue Plan Act of 2021” includes a provision that allows federal employees to collect up to $21,000 to stay at home if their child(ren) does not have school.
The provision also covers part-time and “seasonal” employees “with equivalent hours established by their agency.”
Page 305 of the bill details the “Emergency Federal Employee Leave Fund” from the Treasury Department.
The fund has $570 million “available through September 30.” Federal employees can receive paid leave if they have to care “for others due to Covid-19.”
Yet, those eligible include parents with a child(ren) who do not have in-person school:
Among those eligible are those who are “unable to work” because they are caring for school-aged children not physically in school full time “due to Covid-19 precautions[.]”The new Fund allows a federal employee “caring for a son or daughter” to qualify for the paid leave, specifically:“if the school or place of care of the son or daughter has been closed, if the school of such son or daughter requires or makes optional a virtual learning instruction model or requires or makes optional a hybrid of in-person and virtual learning instruction models, or the child care provider of such son or daughter is unavailable, due to Covid-19 precautions;”
From Forbes:
Under the bill as currently drafted, full-time federal employees can take up to 600 hours in paid leave until September 30, up to $35 an hour and $1,400 a week. That’s 15 weeks for a 40-hour employee. Part-time and “seasonal” employees are eligible, too, with equivalent hours established by their agency.Federal employees currently have up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act. (A law passed in 2019, allows most federal employees – what the sponsors report is 2.1 million federal workers – up to 12 weeks of paid leave for the birth, foster placement or adoption of a new child.)
Adam Andrzejewsi noted the House wrote the bill with vague language. The writers did not specify the age range. Do parents qualify if their child(ren) is home from college?
How about schools that allow parents to choose between in-person and virtual learning? The parents can choose virtual and still pocket $1400 a week.
Those with children in open private schools do not qualify.
The $1400 a week comes from the taxpayers. Do you know who is not getting that $1400 a week? The majority of the taxpayers.
The majority of the taxpayers do not even qualify for the single $1400 checks in the COVID-19 bill!
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