What's in the New COVID-19 Relief Package for Contractors? Billions for roads, harbors, schools, military housing, broadband, and clean energy is aimed at spurring construction.
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he term “construction” appears 636 times in the $908 billion pandemic relief package and $1.4 trillion omnibus spending bill passed by Congress and signed by President Donald Trump at the end of December. In other words, while the relief package was less than half the size of the initial $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, there’s still plenty in the overall bill for contractors to be happy about. “Lots of construction spending is always a good thing, as long as everyone has access to it,” said Kristen Swearingen, vice president of legislative and political affairs at Associated Builders and Contractors. Her cautionary tone refers to the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, which many non-union contractors oppose, potentially being passed in the 117th Congress after Democrats regained control of the Senate. But in general, construction advocates said the new pandemic relief package should be viewed as a win. “This bill for the construction industry has a lot of good things overall,” said Jimmy Christianson, vice president of government relations at the Associated General Contractors of America. “I would say on the
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list of the many things we were asking for, we got probably 80%.” Nevertheless, one lament is that the package doesn’t include liability protection for employers against lawsuits from employees who were exposed to or became infected with COVID-19 at work. With the caveat that legislative analysts and construction observers still are digesting the 5,593-page document, below is a closer look at some of the provisions that should help contractors in 2021: Paycheck Protection Program. There are several wins for contractors in the legislation's renewed PPP funding, including a provision to ensure expenses paid for with forgiven PPP loans are tax deductible, an issue many contractors were wringing their hands over last fall. A related benefit is the expansion of the Employee Retention Tax Credit, which gives qualifying employers a $5,000 credit per worker for employees not paid with PPP funds in 2020, as well as a $7,000 credit per worker per quarter in the first half of 2021. “That's a huge deal for construction companies and employees to help manage the continuing uncercontinued on page 66
“BUY FROM THE ADVERTISERS IN CONSTRUCTION OUTLOOK”
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