The US Congress reaches an agreement for a new bailout worth 900,000 million dollars

Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican, on Capitol Hill this Sunday.Nicholas Kamm / AP

After months of lockdown, and after a frantic weekend of negotiations, the leaders of the United States Congress have finally approved,

a new stimulus package to the economy worth 900,000 million dollars, to help families and businesses to face the economic devastation caused by the coronavirus crisis.

The package approved this Sunday, the first large injection of public money since April, is one of the largest in history, although it does not reach half the amount that was disbursed in the stimulus law approved in March.

The aid provided for in that package was already expiring, and the lockdown on Capitol Hill was leaving millions of Americans without federal aid.

The agreement comes when the United States suffers more than ever from the scourge of the pandemic, which has already claimed more than 317,000 lives in the country, and when the great immunization operation has just started, with the Pfizer vaccine being administered since last week and Moderna's about to start doing it this Monday.

"We can finally report what our nation needed to hear for a long time," Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican Majority Leader, said Sunday night.

"More help is on the way."

The benefits included in the package include a supplement of $ 300 a week to unemployment benefits and a new batch of checks issued to most adult Americans, like the one distributed in the spring, but this time for an amount of 600 dollars (half of the previous one).

There are also grants for companies, and funds for schools, health centers and tenants facing evictions.

House leaders have informed lawmakers that a vote will be taken on Monday, and the Senate is scheduled to vote on the same day as well.

Together with the package, it is expected that a plan will be approved to keep the Government financed until September, for an amount of 1.4 trillion dollars that, added to the 900,000 million of the stimulus package, would constitute a colossus of 2.3 trillion and it would be the last legislative achievement of Congress before the end of the year.

The difficulty of reaching an agreement forced the congressmen to pass a piece of legislation that allowed them to circumvent the government shutdown and continue negotiating all weekend.

The agreement is reached hours before the government ran out of funding and just two weeks before the new Congress was formed, which came out of the polls on November 3.