American Rescue Plan (2021)

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    Restaurants and Bars Rush to Apply for New Federal Aid Program

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    The industry’s return will serve as a major test of President Biden’s goal of bringing the country back to some version of normal by this summer.WASHINGTON — A total of 186,200 restaurants, bars and other eligible businesses applied for help from a new $28.6 billion federal aid program in the first two days it was accepting applications, President Biden said on Wednesday, indicating huge demand from a struggling industry for a limited pot of relief funds.The Restaurant Revitalization Fund was created by Congress as part of the $1.9 trillion relief bill passed in March and began accepting applications online on Monday.“That’s a staggering number,” Mr. Biden said of the opening flood of applications that came in from all 50 states. Business owners who were hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic can apply for grants of up to $10 million.The return of the restaurant industry will serve as a major test of Mr. Biden’s goal of bringing the country back to some version of normal by this summer, both for 2.3 million people whose restaurant jobs disappeared during the pandemic and for vaccinated Americans eager to take advantage of newfound freedoms to go out and socialize again.“Right now, only about a quarter of the restaurant owners expect to return to normal operations in the next six months,” Mr. Biden said. “We can do much better than that.”Few sectors of the economy suffered the financial blow of the coronavirus pandemic last year as much as the restaurant industry, which saw business plummet with the shuttering of indoor dining in many states and closures of higher-priced restaurants that were not able to easily shift to takeout options. More than 110,000 restaurants and bars temporarily or permanently closed last year, according to the National Restaurant Association.Mr. Biden’s aid plan for restaurants, while limited, is more robust than what has been available to them in the past. Restaurants were not included in the coronavirus relief package that former President Donald J. Trump signed into law last December. Mr. Trump had been dismissive of the jobs lost, while expressing optimism about the fate of the industry overall.“It may not be the same restaurant, it may not be the same ownership, but they’ll all be back,” Mr. Trump told reporters last year during a news conference.On Wednesday, Mr. Biden described restaurants as important foundations of their communities and gateways to opportunities that were “more than a major part of our country.”“They’re woven into the fabric of our communities,” the president added.He described the battered industry as one of the best paths for many people to achieve the American dream. “One in three Americans, a restaurant provided their first job,” Mr. Biden said. “More than half of all Americans have worked in a restaurant at some point in their lives.”But for now, the relief the administration is offering falls far short of what is necessary to stabilize the decimated industry.A group of owners of small food businesses who lobbied for the funds have contended that $120 billion is needed to stabilize independent restaurants. And Mr. Biden said on Wednesday that he expected the current fund to be able to help about 100,000 restaurants and other eligible businesses — fewer than those that already applied in the first 48 hours of the website being operational.“We know that the $28.6 billion is not enough to meet the demand,” Isabella Casillas Guzman, the small business administrator, said last week. “However, we need to demonstrate that demand, and we need to encourage everyone to apply and access this fund as much as possible and demonstrate what remaining need is out there.”For the first 21 days, the Small Business Administration will approve claims only from businesses that are majority-owned by women, veterans or people who qualify as both socially and economically disadvantaged.Mr. Biden said 97,600 of the applications received in the program’s first two days had come from businesses owned by people who fell into those categories. High demand for the funds, however, was not necessarily a good thing for a program that has limited funding and will have to turn many needy businesses away.The White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said the administration would be open to seeking more funding from Congress, but she offered no specifics. Mr. Biden said the high demand should prove to skeptics that the program was a necessity.“We passed the American Rescue Plan,” he said. “Some people said it wasn’t needed. This response proves them wrong. It’s badly needed.”Before his remarks at the White House, Mr. Biden purchased tacos and enchiladas from Taqueria Las Gemelas, a Mexican restaurant in Washington that was a beneficiary of the relief fund’s pilot program. The restaurant went from 55 employees before the pandemic to just seven, Mr. Biden said.The program has yet to distribute any money to restaurants outside of the limited pilot, but officials said they hoped to get funds out the door quickly. More

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    Can the Biden Agenda Fix Middle America’s Deepest Problem?

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    One key economic goal is to create the virtuous cycles of innovation and jobs that already occur in many coastal cities.Last week, the Census Bureau said that the last decade’s population growth was the slowest in generations. Also last week, President Biden addressed Congress and laid out a wide-ranging, multi-trillion dollar economic agenda.The two developments are tightly related.For much of the United States, a demographic crisis and an economic crisis are two sides of the same coin. In many cities and regions, a shrinking population reduces the tax base, leading to underinvestment and deterioration of the physical environment and public services, causing even more jobs and people to go elsewhere.Part of the aspiration of Bidenism — a through-line in the pandemic rescue plan already enacted, and in major proposals for spending on infrastructure and family support — is to break that cycle. Mayors and others focused on the development of places that have experienced economic and demographic languishing see a distinct opportunity to use federal money to fix problems long in the making.There are inherent tensions. Spending money in places with a fast-growing population typically offers a surer economic return than spending it in those that are contracting.The economic case for investing in places that have lagged in the modern economy relies on the possibility of reversing those negative trends and unlocking new growth. Many of those directly involved in that effort are downright giddy with the possibility that they can seize this moment to prepare their cities and towns for the future.Downtown Huntington, W.Va., last year. “The growth is going to occur where there is a community that is functional,” Mayor Steve Williams said.Andrew Spear for The New York Times“If you spend hundreds of billions of dollars over the next 10 years, it sounds like an awful lot of money,” said Steve Williams, the mayor of Huntington, W.Va., a city of 45,000 people — down from 50,000 in 2010. But after what he views as decades of underinvestment, and considering the potential long-term payoff, “it’s just a pittance,” he said.“We’re talking about investments that will last for 50 years and prove to be transformative to our communities,” Mayor Williams said. He is particularly enthusiastic about efforts to invest in highways, clean water infrastructure, and broadband in Huntington and across Appalachia.Even assuming the Biden proposals make it through a narrowly divided Congress, there is no assurance of success. The long-declining communities face a complex web of problems, some of them a result of powerful economic forces — like outsize rewards for technologically savvy workers who congregate in large cities — that aren’t going away.“I’m going to give the Biden administration high marks for a lot of the individual tactical things they’re proposing,” said John Lettieri, president of the Economic Innovation Group, a Washington think tank that aims to encourage more economic dynamism in lagging parts of the country. “I worry that everything they’re doing will be helpful incidentally and on the margins, but that we need more aggressive and robust strategy and not tactics.”Moreover, there is a risk that even with trillions of dollars being spent, bureaucratic kludge makes the dollars less effective than they might be. Dozens of agencies are involved, and there is no certainty that the money will be spent efficiently and in ways that maximize the chances that struggling places can stabilize themselves.“This administration may be more concerned about declining cities and places than any since the Great Society, maybe the Great Depression,” said Mark Muro, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program. “At some point they will need to braid all of this together and manage how these programs interact with each other.”The administration’s emphasis partly reflects President Biden’s own longstanding instincts. He often invokes growing up in Scranton, Pa.— where the population was in steep decline throughout the second half of the 20th century — as formative in his economic thinking.But it also reflects evolution among economists and development specialists. Once the predominant thinking was that economically lagging regions and more successful ones would converge over time, and that the government should focus on helping people navigate a changing economy rather than try to save faltering communities.At right, President Biden’s childhood home in Scranton.Mark Makela for The New York TimesIt has become increasingly apparent that there are big problems when a handful of superstar cities thrive and much of the country struggles. It means vast human potential goes untapped and lots of capital — existing cities and towns — goes underutilized. And it can fuel political polarization and damage democracy, as people in declining regions feel less connected to their more prosperous countrymen.The debate is often framed as between “people” (policies to help individuals affected by economic change) and “places” (policies aimed at communities that are languishing).“I don’t think we can ignore the role of place in public policy any longer and just allocate investments to people,” said Ross DeVol, president of Heartland Forward, a think tank based in Bentonville, Ark. “Because that creates a hollowing out in places that affects the entire country negatively.“We can’t as a nation continue to advance our competitive position by concentrating more knowledge-based industries and research just on the coasts,” Mr. DeVol added, saying this results in soaring real estate prices in those coastal markets, as well as underused physical infrastructure and a lack of opportunity in the places left behind.Federal policy in recent decades has arguably reinforced the disparity.The federal government itself is based in one of the high-growth coastal metropolises. Nearly half of federal research and development spending in 2018 went to five states — California, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York and Virginia — and Washington, D.C., according to analysis of federal data by Brookings.The Biden administration’s American Jobs Plan incorporates ideas from the bipartisan “Endless Frontier Act,” which, among other things, seeks to spend billions to create regional innovation hubs. The idea is to invest in cutting-edge research with potential for commercial spinoffs, worker training and other steps to create the kinds of virtuous cycles of innovation and jobs that already occur in places like Boston.That could be a boon to places like Lincoln, Neb.Its population has grown slowly but steadily in recent years; investments in things like high-speed internet have helped it avoid the cycle of decline affecting many other smaller cities in the Midwest. It is home to the University of Nebraska, which has strong programs in computer science and engineering, and it has a vibrant agribusiness sector.The Southpointe Pavilions shopping center in Lincoln, Neb.Walker Pickering for The New York TimesBut Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird says the city still loses young talent to opportunities in bigger cities. She says several elements of the Biden plans could improve things.A proposed $12 billion in community college spending should help ensure the city has the work force employers are looking for, she said. Plans to build broadband across rural communities could better connect Lincoln and its job opportunities with the rest of Nebraska.And the financial help for cities and states included in the American Rescue Plan, enacted in March, should allow more basic investments to make the city appealing to young families.The city has been slowly replacing lead water lines so residents can be confident of safe drinking water, she said, and it now has the prospect of being able to complete that work faster. “I think there was a sigh of collective relief among mayors of cities this size you could hear around the country” when the American Rescue Plan passed with money for local governments, Mayor Gaylor Baird said. “Everything about this moment feels like it has the potential to be transformational.”Mr. Williams, the Huntington mayor, also cast this as a moment with long-lasting implications. His city, a onetime industrial hub, features a low cost of living and lots of natural beauty, and is the home of Marshall University. It could appeal to workers who see an opportunity to work remotely and are tired of the stresses of bigger cities.Mayor Williams of Huntington, W.Va., is particularly enthusiastic about efforts to invest in highways, clean water infrastructure and broadband.Andrew Spear for The New York Times“The growth is going to occur where there is a community that is functional,” Mayor Williams said. “Covid was a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, but it’s also a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity as people realize they can work remotely if they have access to broadband and clean water and a safe and solid community.”The infrastructure legislation, he said, could be the jolt that assures people that the city can offer both jobs and amenities — and that it is reversing population loss and economic decline.“Sadly, when you look at our population losses, individuals have left just because they haven’t felt like they had a lot of choice,” he said. “My job is to give them a choice.” More

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    Biden, in Georgia to Promote Economic Agenda, Visits Carter

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    A day after his first address to Congress, President Biden met with former President Jimmy Carter and held a drive-in rally for his 100th day in office.President Biden visited former President Jimmy Carter, an old friend, as he traveled to Georgia on Thursday to pitch his $4 trillion economic agenda.A day after using his first address to Congress to urge swift passage of his plans to spend heavily on infrastructure, child care, paid leave and other efforts meant to bolster economic competitiveness, Mr. Biden held a drive-in car rally in Duluth, Ga., for his 100th day in office.The president promoted the $1.9 trillion economic aid bill he signed into law in March and pitched the two-part plan for longer-term investments in the economy that he has rolled out over the past two weeks. His audience included people in about 315 cars. His remarks were briefly interrupted by protesters calling on him to abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement.Mr. Biden thanked Georgia voters for electing Senators Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, who tipped the balance of the chamber to Democrats in January and enabled him to pass a far more ambitious economic rescue package after taking office than what would most likely have been possible with a divided Congress.“We owe special thanks to the people of Georgia,” the president said. “Because of your two senators, the rest of America was able to get the help they got so far. The American Rescue Plan would not have passed. So much have we gotten done, like getting checks to people, probably would not have happened. So if you ever wonder if elections make a difference, just remember what you did here in Georgia: When you elected Ossoff and Warnock, you began to change the environment.”Mr. Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and the president’s cabinet are embarking on a post-speech tour to push the economic plans through next week. Administration officials said the focus would include celebrating the increased pace of Covid-19 vaccinations since Mr. Biden took office and the rebound in economic activity.The president will also push Congress to pass a sprawling package of tax cuts and spending programs intended to address long-running economic inequalities, create jobs and give more Americans flexibility to balance work and family. The most recent batch of plans, which Mr. Biden detailed on Wednesday, include efforts to reduce child care costs, the creation of a federal paid leave program, free community college, universal prekindergarten and expanded efforts to fight poverty.“He and the first lady are returning to Georgia to talk about getting America back on track,” Karine Jean-Pierre, the principal deputy press secretary, told reporters as they traveled to the state.First, though, Mr. Biden took a detour to Plains, Ga., where Mr. Carter lives with his wife, Rosalynn Carter. Mr. Carter, the longest-living former president, is 96 years old and a cancer survivor. He has remained largely out of the public view during the coronavirus pandemic, although he appeared at a parade in October for his birthday. He did not attend Mr. Biden’s inauguration in January, and the president had promised to visit him.“This is a longstanding friendship,” Ms. Jean-Pierre said. “They said that they were going to try to see each other after inauguration.”Mr. Biden was the first senator to endorse Mr. Carter’s presidential bid in 1976, when Mr. Carter was the Georgia governor and not considered the favorite for the Democratic nomination. Mr. Biden recalled that endorsement as part of a brief video message he taped this month for the film crew behind “Carterland,” a documentary on the Carter administration.“Some of my colleagues in the Senate thought it was youthful exuberance,” Mr. Biden said in the video. “Well, I was exuberant, but as I said then, ‘Jimmy’s not just a bright smile. He can win, and he can appeal to more segments of the population than any other person.’”In the message, the president hailed Mr. Carter’s work in office and after his defeat to Ronald Reagan in 1980, praising Mr. Carter for working to eradicate disease and house the poor while still finding time to teach Sunday school. Mr. Biden said Mr. Carter had called him the night before his inauguration to wish him well and say he would be there in spirit.“Simply put,” Mr. Biden told Mr. Carter and Mrs. Carter at the end of the video, “we love you, and God bless you both.”The visit between the two families on Thursday lasted less than an hour. Mr. Biden’s motorcade arrived at the Carters’ home from Jimmy Carter Regional Airport at 2:30 p.m. A pool reporter glimpsed Mrs. Carter, in a white top and using a walker, on the front porch. There was no sign of Mr. Carter.Zach Montague More

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    Senate Passes $35 Billion Water Bill, but Bigger Infrastructure Fights Loom

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    The lopsided vote was a reminder that bipartisan cooperation on public works projects is possible, but lawmakers in both parties said the spirit of compromise could be fleeting.WASHINGTON — The Senate on Thursday overwhelmingly approved a $35 billion measure to clean up the nation’s water systems, offering a brief moment of bipartisan cooperation amid deep divisions between the two parties over President Biden’s much larger ambitions for a multitrillion-dollar infrastructure package.Republicans and Democrats alike hailed passage of the bill on an 89-to-2 vote as evidence that bipartisan compromise is possible on infrastructure initiatives, but lawmakers in both parties suggested that the spirit of deal-making could be fleeting.Mr. Biden and Democratic leaders have said they want Republican support for a broad infrastructure package that aims to improve the nation’s aging public works system and address economic and racial inequities, after pushing a nearly $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill into law with just Democratic votes. But Republicans have panned those proposals, which are to be financed with tax increases on high earners and corporations, and Democrats have said they may have to move them unilaterally if no compromise can be reached.“We’re trying to work in a bipartisan way whenever we can — and this bill is a classic example,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, said of the water bill. “It doesn’t mean that we’ll be able to do the whole thing bipartisan, but we’ll do as much as we can.”The legislation approved on Thursday would authorize funding to shore up the nation’s water systems, particularly in rural and tribal communities that have long been neglected and suffer from poor sanitation and unclean drinking water. A House Democratic aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said House committees had their own substantial proposals and looked forward to negotiations.“I don’t want to overplay it, but I think it’s definitely a major positive,” Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of West Virginia, said of the lopsided vote on the water infrastructure bill, which she helped spearhead. Yet Ms. Capito cautioned that the moment of cooperation might not last long if negotiations faltered.Republicans have “made it clear that we don’t see the definition of infrastructure — physical core infrastructure — the same way” that Mr. Biden does, she said. The two spoke on Thursday afternoon in what the White House described as a friendly conversation in which both sides reiterated a desire to negotiate.In his speech before a joint session on Congress on Wednesday, Mr. Biden applauded an infrastructure counteroffer put forward by Senate Republicans and called on lawmakers to “get to work.” Ms. Capito and other Republicans have been in touch with the White House over their $568 billion framework for roads, bridges, airports, ports and broadband.But that plan, which Republicans have said is the largest infrastructure proposal they have offered, is a fraction of the spending Mr. Biden outlined, even before he unveiled a $1.8 trillion plan for investing in workers, child care and schools on Wednesday. It notably excluded all of Mr. Biden’s suggestions for how to pay for the spending — including tax increases on corporations — and did not provide clear alternatives.It remains unclear whether Democrats will agree to winnowing down the scope of the economic platform or plans to pay for it by undoing key elements of the 2017 tax plan in order to win a handful of Republican votes. Some Democrats, including Senator Joe Manchin III of West Virginia, a key moderate, have urged their colleagues to negotiate with Republicans.“I think there is a good reason for us to proceed with sincere bipartisan negotiations in the next few weeks — not indefinitely,” Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, told reporters on Thursday. He said that making the attempt would be crucial for getting the requisite 50 Democratic votes to pass something unilaterally if those talks stalled.Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio, said he was optimistic, after conversations with Mr. Biden and White House staff members, that Senate Republicans and the administration could hatch a deal around a “narrower” definition of infrastructure, leaving other liberal proposals in Mr. Biden’s plans for a separate bill.“I don’t know where the White House ends up on it,” Mr. Portman said. “The president last night said the right things, both in his speech and private conversations. I think they want to do an infrastructure package. They also want to do the other things. They understand that they don’t work together.”Republican leaders, however, were more skeptical. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, said on Thursday that Mr. Biden had rattled off a “multitrillion-dollar shopping list that was neither designed nor intended to earn bipartisan buy-in.”With the nearly $1.9 trillion stimulus plan still popular with a majority of voters, some Democrats are eager to wield their slim majorities in both chambers to push as many liberal priorities into law as possible.Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who is the chairman of the Budget Committee, said he and his panel had begun work on a budget resolution, legislation needed to unlock the reconciliation process that would allow them to circumvent a filibuster and push through a fiscal package without Republican votes. (Democrats have not yet committed to using the maneuver.)“The calculus is, we get a lot more than we would if we chase our tail around and hope for this bipartisan mirage that is just over the horizon and keeps moving over the horizon,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut.Using reconciliation, Mr. Blumenthal acknowledged, could curtail certain provisions because of the strict rules that govern the process, and would not allow for any defections in the Senate. Even before Democrats try to muscle any legislation through that gantlet of parliamentary restrictions, they would have to ensure that the entire caucus in both chambers was united behind the contents.That prospect already appears charged, with several Democrats cautioning reporters in recent days that Congress, not Mr. Biden, is ultimately responsible for shaping the fine details of any legislative plan. Some Democrats are pushing to make certain provisions permanent, including an expanded monthly benefit to families with children that Mr. Biden has suggested extending through 2025.Other Democrats are advocating additional changes to the tax code, while several progressive lawmakers, including Mr. Sanders, are pushing to expand Medicare and include provisions to help lower the cost of prescription drugs.“What is going to happen is there is going to be a major, major piece of legislation that is going to go a long way to improving life for the American people,” Mr. Sanders said. “All of us are going to have to take a deep breath and understand that we have to go forward right now to address the crises facing the country even if the bill is not 100 percent of what we want.”Nicholas Fandos More

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    Here's President Biden's Infrastructure and Families Plan, in One Chart

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    Money directed at families is added to an earlier proposal on infrastructure.President Biden released the second portion of his economic plan on Wednesday: $1.8 trillion in new spending and tax cuts over 10 years for workers, families and children. That’s on top of the $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan he released at the end of March. Together, here’s what’s included: More

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    Biden’s $4 Trillion Economic Plan, in One Chart

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    Money directed at families is added to an earlier proposal on infrastructure.President Biden released the second portion of his economic plan on Wednesday: $1.8 trillion in new spending and tax cuts over 10 years for workers, families and children. That’s on top of the $2.3 trillion infrastructure plan he released at the end of March. Together, here’s what’s included: More

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    Biden $1.8 Trillion Plan: Child Care, Student Aid and More

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    The proposed American Families Plan would expand access to education and child care. It would be financed partly through higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans.WASHINGTON — The Biden administration on Wednesday detailed a $1.8 trillion collection of spending increases and tax cuts that seeks to expand access to education, reduce the cost of child care and support women in the work force, financed by additional taxes on high earners.The American Families Plan, as the White House calls it, follows the $2.3 trillion infrastructure package President Biden introduced last month, bringing his two-part package of economic proposals to just over $4 trillion. He will present the details to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday evening.The proposal includes $1 trillion in new spending and $800 billion in tax credits, much of which is aimed at expanding access to education and child care. The package includes financing for universal prekindergarten, a federal paid leave program, efforts to make child care more affordable, free community college for all, aid for students at colleges that historically serve nonwhite communities, expanded subsidies under the Affordable Care Act and an extension of new federal efforts to fight poverty.Administration officials cast the plan as investing in an inclusive economy that would help millions of Americans gain the skills and the work flexibility they need to build middle-class lifestyles. They cited research on the benefits of government spending to help young children learn. In a 15-page briefing document, they said the package would help close racial and gender opportunity gaps across the economy.Many of the provisions, like tax credits to help families afford child care and a landmark expansion of a tax credit meant to fight child poverty, build on measures in the $1.9 trillion economic rescue plan Mr. Biden signed into law last month. The package would make many of those temporary measures permanent.But the plan also includes a maze of complicated formulas for who would benefit from certain provisions — and how much of the tab state governments would need to pick up.The package could face even more challenges than the American Jobs Plan, Mr. Biden’s physical infrastructure proposal, did in Congress. The president has said repeatedly that he hopes to move his agenda with bipartisan support. But his administration remains far from reaching a consensus with Republican negotiators in the Senate.Republicans have expressed much less interest in additional spending for education, child care and paid leave than they have for building roads and bridges. They have also chafed at the tax increases Mr. Biden has proposed, including the ones that will help pay for his latest package.The president is proposing an increase in the marginal income tax rate for the top 1 percent of American income earners, to 39.6 percent from 37 percent. He would increase capital gains and dividend tax rates for those who earn more than $1 million a year. And he would eliminate a provision in the tax code that reduces capital gains on some inherited assets, like vacation homes, that largely benefits the wealthy.Mr. Biden would also invest $80 billion in personnel and technology enhancements for the I.R.S., in hopes of netting $700 billion in additional revenues from high earners, wealthy individuals and corporations that evade taxes.Republicans and conservative activists have criticized all those measures. Administration officials told reporters that the president would be open to financing the spending and tax credits in his plan through alternative means, essentially challenging Republicans to name their own offsets, as Mr. Biden did with his physical infrastructure proposal.Still, many of the details in his new proposal poll well with voters across the political spectrum. Much of the package could win the support of the full Democratic caucus in Congress, which would need to band together to pass all or part of the plan through the fast-track process known as budget reconciliation, which bypasses a Senate filibuster.Expanded access to government-subsidized preschool and community college may have broad appeal. Workers with only high school degrees are often stuck in low-wage jobs, and two-thirds of mothers with young children are employed, and thus need reliable child care. The high cost of quality day care and pre-K puts these services out of reach for many families, who may rely on informal networks of relatives and neighbors who are untrained in early education.Expanding access to pre-K has been particularly popular over the past decade in states and cities, including some with Republican governors. A large body of research shows that achievement gaps between poor and middle-class children emerge in the earliest years of childhood and are present on the first day of kindergarten. Administration officials contend that free, quality early childhood education can both help cash-strapped parents and build students’ skills in ways that will help them become more productive workers.Still, there are major disagreements about how generous any expansion of pre-K should be. President Barack Obama’s administration generally favored a centrist approach in which new seats were geared toward lower-income families.Mr. Biden’s plan differs in that it calls for universal preschool for all 3- and 4-year-olds, including those from affluent families. That is the same approach pioneered in recent years by city programs in New York and Washington, which expanded quickly to serve a diverse swath of families, but not without some evidence that they replicated the segregation and inequities of the broader K-12 education system.Bruce Fuller, a professor of education at the University of California, Berkeley, has been a critic of the universal approach, instead favoring more targeted programs. He questioned whether states would do their part to fund the expansion and said the goal of paying all early childhood workers $15 per hour was too modest to broadly improve the quality and stability of the work force.“How governors weigh these competing priorities, ethically and politically, remains an open question,” he said.The proposed investment from Washington comes at a precarious time. Preschool enrollment declined by nearly 25 percent over the past year, largely because of the coronavirus pandemic. As of December, about half of 4-year-olds and 40 percent of 3-year-olds attended pre-K, including in remote programs. And only 13 percent of children in poverty were receiving an in-person preschool education in December, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research.Unlike the preschool proposal, the child care plan is not universal. It would offer subsidies to families earning up to 1.5 times their state’s median income, which could be in the low six figures in some locations. It would also continue tax credits approved in the pandemic relief bill this year that offer benefits to people earning up to $400,000 a year.As with Mr. Biden’s previous policy proposals, the American Families Plan offers something to many traditional Democratic Party constituencies. The administration is closely tied to teachers’ unions, and while many early childhood educators are not unionized, the proposal also calls for investments in K-12 teacher education, training and pay, which are all union priorities. One goal is to bring more teachers of color into a public education system where a majority of students are nonwhite.The expansion of free community college would apply to all students, regardless of income. It would require states to contribute to meet the goal of universal access, senior administration officials said on Tuesday. Mr. Biden would also expand Pell grants for low-income students and subsidize two years of tuition at historically Black colleges and universities, as well as at institutions that serve members of Native American tribes and other minority groups.Mr. Fuller said he expected the community college proposal to effectively target spending to the neediest students. About one-third of all undergraduates attend public two-year colleges, which serve a disproportionate number of students from low-income families.The paid leave program will phase in over time. The administration’s fact sheet says it will guarantee 12 weeks of paid “parental, family and personal illness/safe leave” by its 10th year in existence. Workers on leave will earn up to $4,000 a month, with as little as two-thirds or as much as 80 percent of their incomes replaced, depending on how much they earn.Other provisions include late concessions to key Democratic constituencies. Administration officials had removed the health care credits last week but added them back under pressure from Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California and others. They bucked pressure from House and Senate Democrats to make permanent an expanded child tax credit created by the pandemic relief bill, extending it through 2025. But the plan would make permanent one aspect of the expanded credit, which allows parents with little or no income to reap its benefits regardless of how much they earn. More