Jan. 15. Officials at the US Chamber of Commerce are welcoming President-elect Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan which includes a $1,400 payment per person, raising the minimum wage and a national vaccination program that includes safely opening schools.

“We applaud the President-elect’s focus on vaccinations and on economic sectors and families that continue to suffer as the pandemic rages on. We must defeat COVID before we can restore our economy and that requires turbocharging our vaccination efforts,” the chamber said in a press release.

“We look forward to working with the new administration and Congress on the details and in ensuring that any additional economic assistance is timely, targeted, and temporary,” the chamber said.

President-elect Biden’s American Rescue Plan includes:

—Mount a national vaccination program, contain COVID-19, and safely reopen schools, including by setting up community vaccination sites nationwide, scaling up testing and tracing, eliminating supply shortage problems, investing in high-quality treatments, providing paid sick leave to contain spread of the virus, addressing health disparities, and making the necessary investments to meet Biden’s goal of safely reopening a majority of K-8 schools in the first 100 days.

—Deliver immediate relief to working families by sending $1,400 per-person checks to US households, providing direct housing and nutrition assistance, expanding access to safe childcare and healthcare, increasing the minimum wage, extending unemployment insurance and giving families with kids and childless workers an emergency boost this year.

—Support communities that are struggling in the wake of COVID-19 by providing support for the hardest-hit small businesses, especially small businesses owned by entrepreneurs of color, and protecting the jobs of the first responders, transit workers, and other essential workers we depend on.

The Biden plan will also provide emergency funding to upgrade federal information technology infrastructure and address the recent breaches of federal government data systems.