SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO.com) — South Dakota’s state government will receive close to a billion dollars from the Biden administration’s COVID-19 relief plan.
New numbers released Monday set aside $974,478,793 in aid to South Dakota. The state has the third-smallest overall share, behind Montana and Delaware.
The Treasury Department factored in unemployment levels when determining the state-by-state spending, unlike previous rounds of COVID relief under the Trump administration. California received the highest allocation of about $27 billion.
This figure is just the money going straight to the state government; it doesn’t count other aspects of the plan, like local government relief and stimulus payments to individuals.
The law gives states relatively broad authority on what to spend the money on. Public health expenditures and relief for businesses are two available options, but so is any government service that would have been funded by tax revenue lost due to the pandemic.
Any state with an unemployment rate at least two percentage points above its pre-pandemic level will receive its money all at once. 20 states, including North Dakota, fall into that category. The remaining states, including South Dakota, Iowa, and Minnesota, will get half of their aid this year and half in 2022.
Initial payments are set to begin this month, according to the Treasury Department.
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