Statement: Congress Must Pass the HEROES Act.

South Carolina Appleseed calls on Congress to pass the HEROES Act. The Act is the comprehensive action that is necessary to meet the unprecedented need in South Carolina and across the country. If the bill becomes law, the HEROES Act will:

  • Boost SNAP’s maximum allotment by 15 percent,
  • Provide direct aid and fiscal relief to state and local governments,
  • Increase federal funding for Medicaid,
  • Extend the CARES Act unemployment insurance,
  • Provide funding for low-income housing assistance,
  • Pay for a second round of stimulus payments, which will include those left out of the first payments.
  • And More.

In short, the HEROES Act will help everyone struggling right now, from families to local governments to states. It will protect people’s livelihoods and health, all while delivering urgently needed funding to crucial services such as education and health care.

Before this crisis, South Carolinians living with low incomes already needed more protections in areas spanning from housing, food security, healthcare and more. Now, our economy has been shocked to its core, and with unemployment comparable only to the Great Depression, we’ve been taught the lesson that no one is immune to misfortune.

With that lesson and the knowledge that economic hardship can fall on anyone at any time, through the HEROES Act and other action, we can take serious steps to address poverty and systemic problems in our economy. But if we lift economic protections too soon or fail to provide sufficient relief for those struggling right now, we could further digress, making this health and economic crisis worse. To prevent that, South Carolina Appleseed calls on the state’s entire congressional delegation to embrace the policies in the act and vote for its passage.  When it passes to the Senate, we urge Senators Lindsey Graham and Tim Scott to do what is needed to get our state and country back on track.