President Biden signed the pandemic relief bill today after the House of Representatives passed it yesterday., according to the New York Times and CNBC. The bill, among many other things, will:

* Provide $1,400 direct payments to Americans making under $75,000, with the payments tapering off after that until a $80,000 threshold is reached; those making more than that get nothing (previously, the threshold was $99,000).

* Give $300 in weekly federal supplements to unemployment payments (from the original $400), which will last until the beginning of September (previously August). The first $10,200 will be nontaxable (the House version lacked this provision).

* Temporarily expand the child tax credit—currently worth up to $2,000 per child under 17—to up to $3,600 for children up to age 5 and up to $3,000 for children 6 to 17. The credit would be distributed in the form of regular monthly payments for families.

* Exempt student loan forgiveness from being taxed as income through 2025.

* Apportion $160 billion for vaccine and testing programs; $360 billion in aid for state, local and territorial governments, including $10 billion that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) added in the final moments before the bill passed; paid-leave benefits of as much as $1,400 per week and tax credits for employers with fewer than 500 employees to reimburse them for the cost of the sick time; $170 billion for schools; an extension of the foreclosure and eviction moratoria through September, along with $50 billion in rental assistance and emergency housing funds; and about $47 billion for various small business aid programs, including more money for the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP).

One thing it does not do is increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour, which the House version would have.

Markets have reacted positively to the news, according to Business Insider, based at least in part on the degree to which the package is expected to boost the economy. The effects are estimated to be so large that there is a possibility that it may wind up leading the U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) to grow at a faster rate than China's for the first time in years, said Fortune. Fortune cited Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief Asia-Pacific economist at Paris-based investment bank Natixis, who said that it is apparently "unlikely but possible" that the United States in 2021 could see GDP growth of 7 percent, which would be higher than the projected Chinese growth of 6 percent. She added that the next opportunity for the United States to surpass China will come in 2041, which is when the Chinese economy is anticipated to reach a 2.5 percent plateau.