American Rescue Plan

On today’s program: The director of public policy from Trying Together explains how millions of dollars from the American Rescue Plan will support child care providers; we discuss whether workers whose employment is terminated because they don’t comply with vaccine mandates can collect unemployment benefits; and local poet Toi Derricotte considers how her work has changed others in light of receiving the Academy of American Poets’ Wallace Stevens Award.

On Tuesday, Allegheny County Council voted 14-0 to approve County Executive Rich Fitzgerald’s proposal to use nearly $100 million in COVID-19 relief money this year. The rest of the money is slated to be spent in the next two years.

The Allegheny County Council Committee on Budget and Finance gave preliminary approval on Tuesday to a plan to spend a portion of the county’s $380 million in American Rescue Plan funding.

Pittsburgh City Council approved nearly $95 million in federal relief funds to go to different city authorities and a nonprofit on Tuesday.

Democrats on Allegheny County Council failed to amass enough support Tuesday to fast-track a vote on a proposed paid sick leave mandate. Now, the bill will go to a Republican-led committee for further review.

Allegheny County agencies are still writing a budget for $380 million in coronavirus relief from President Biden's American Rescue Plan. Details have yet to be released, and activists think the public should have more input.

On today’s program: Why some think the vote to approve the Peduto administration’s spending plan for $335 million in federal COVID relief has been rushed; a look at the new statewide police misconduct database, the creation of which was prompted by the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Antwon Rose II; and we speak to Destenie Nock, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, about how microgrids could make entities like hospitals and airports more resilient.

President Joe Biden is stepping up his bid to push his multitrillion-dollar domestic agenda through Congress. He's met with Senate Democrats at a private lunch at the Capitol.

On today’s program: Dan Gilman with the City of Pittsburgh explains how the mayor’s office wants to use $335 million from the American Rescue Plan to raise city salaries, stalled by the pandemic, and advance affordable housing; Pittsburgh City Councilor Erika Strassburger weighs in on why the city should ban single-use plastic bags, a policy that’s now possible under the new state budget; and the state is asking residents to put away bird baths and feeders to reduce the spread of a mysterious illness among songbirds that’s causing neurological symptoms and death.

Do I qualify for the expanded child tax credit?