On March 27, 2020, President Donald Trump signed into law the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, a $2.2 trillion economic stimulus package designed to mitigate the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.
The legislation, passed by the 116th United States Congress, aimed to provide emergency assistance for individuals, families, and businesses grappling with the unprecedented economic disruption caused by the rapidly spreading virus. The CARES Act established a $150 billion Coronavirus Relief Fund, distributing payments to State, Local, and Tribal governments to address the public health emergency and its economic consequences. These payments were allocated based on population data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
According to guidance from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, funds from the Coronavirus Relief Fund were restricted to cover necessary expenditures directly related to the COVID-19 public health emergency. Specifically, these expenditures had to be unforeseen as of March 27, 2020 – the date the CARES Act was enacted – and incurred between March 1, 2020, and December 31, 2022. The Treasury Department later revised its guidance, clarifying that costs associated with necessary expenditures would be considered incurred by the deadline if a recipient had entered into an obligation for those costs by December 31, 2022.
The CARES Act’s origins trace back to earlier legislation. The initial bill, H.R. 748, known as the Middle Class Health Benefits Tax Repeal Act of 2019, was introduced in the House by Joe Courtney (D-CT) in January 2019. It underwent significant revisions before ultimately being passed by the Senate on March 25, 2020, and subsequently agreed to by the House on March 27, 2020, before being signed into law.
The Supreme Court addressed legal challenges related to the CARES Act in the case of Yellen v. Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation (No. 20-543, 594 U.S. 338 (2021)).
