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The $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package will assist hundreds of thousands of veterans across the country who lost their jobs during the pandemic. It includes $17 billion in health care, retraining and other assistance programs offered by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
"Like any other segment of the population, the pandemic has had a significant financial distress for our veterans community,” said Ralph Bozella, chairman of the Veteran Affairs and Rehabilitation Commission at the American Legion, an organization of about 1.8 million wartime veterans, most of them older adults.
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At the peak of the pandemic, there were roughly 700,000 veterans across the country who had lost their jobs, Bozella says. About 50 percent of those worked in the service industry, one of the hardest hit by COVID-19.
During the pandemic, VA health care facilities treated over 230,000 infected veterans. More than 10,000 died from the virus.
VA Secretary Denis McDonough says the department's biggest challenge in vaccinating veterans has been the limited supply of vaccine doses. “What I hear from our docs is, ‘From the moment we get it, our allotments are in arms within two to three days.'"
Stimulus checks. Individual veterans who receive VA benefits and did not file a 2018 or 2019 tax return should not have to take additional steps to receive the latest payment. This round of checks will be up to $1,400 for eligible individuals who reported $75,000 or less in adjusted gross income.
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