Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Thursday he wanted Congress to pass direct payments to American families suffering during the Chinese coronavirus crisis.
“I refer to this as checks in the mail, but it’s really money directly deposited,” Mnuchin said, during an interview with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo.
Mnuchin detailed a proposal to send $1000 to American adults and $500 per child — $3,000 for a family of four.
“Soon as Congress passes this, we get this out in three weeks and then six weeks later if the president still has a national emergency, we’ll deliver another $3,000,” he said.
The direct payments to Americans are part of a proposed $1 trillion coronavirus economic relief package proposed by President Donald Trump’s administration.
“This is not going to go on forever, we are going to beat this, and while we are doing that, we understand, there are impacts on hardworking Americans and the president is determined that we are going to support them,” Mnuchin said.
Mnuchin said $300 billion would be used for small businesses, helping them hire people and keep people on the payroll during the crisis, and repaying them with loan forgiveness.
“That’s 40 percent of the private workforce and we want to keep those people employed,” he said.