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While the signing was initially slated for Friday, the White House announced the bill would be signed into law Thursday afternoon after the House was able to deliver it for Biden’s signature more quickly than anticipated.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki previewed there would be an additional signing event at the White House Friday that would include House and Senate Democrats.

The bill allocates $130 billion to reopen schools and provide $160 billion for vaccinations and testing, along with billions in aid for small businesses, food and housing, along with the $1,400 direct payments.

\"PHOTO:
Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images
PHOTO: President Joe Biden signs the American Rescue Plan on March 11, 2021, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, D.C.
>

It would also help to lower the cost of health care plans purchased on federal marketplaces for middle-class and low-income Americans by increasing subsidies, and extend additional unemployment benefits for Americans, set to expire on March 14, without interruption.

With the American Rescue Plan now law, the United States has officially allocated over $5 trillion in funding for COVID relief -- a massive sum that outpaces what the United States spent during World War II when adjusted for inflation.

Biden proposed the bill even before taking office, laying out the massive spending measure on Jan. 14 in an evening address to the nation, making his case for the $1.9 trillion price tag.

\"We not only have an economic imperative to act now. I believe we have a moral obligation. In this pandemic, in America, we cannot let people go hungry. We cannot let people get evicted. We cannot watch nurses, educators, and others lose their jobs. We so badly need them. We must act now and act decisively,\" Biden said in the January remarks.

He will also address the pandemic in his first prime-time address Thursday night, taking stock of the year since the pandemic declaration, and what’s next for the country in the continued effort to get the coronavirus under control.

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