WASHINGTON After months of delays, Congress finally has agreed to a $900 billion deal on COVID-19 relief, giving jobless Americans some respite with direct payments and unemployment insurance, as well as funding for public schools and vaccine distribution.

Perhaps of greatest interest to most Americans will be the stimulus checks. The final deal authorizes $600 in direct payments to individuals who made less than $75,000 in 2019. Essentially, if you received a check in the spring or summer, this check should be half as much.

The good news is that Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said some Americans could see their money directly deposited into their bank accounts by next week, since the Internal Revenue Service had practice sending the rebates earlier this year. Most payments, however, will likely take longer.

The payments will go to every adult and child, meaning a family of four would receive $2,400 from the federal government as long as a married couples collective income is less than $150,000. But immigrants who are not lawful permanent residents and adult dependents are cut out of the deal.

Other major provisions of interest are the changes to unemployment benefits. Instead of expiring next week, federal benefits for gig workers and the long-term jobless will continue until March 14 an additional 11 weeks. Unemployed Americans will be eligible for an additional $300 a week in jobless benefits during that time, on top of what they receive from the state or federal program paying their claim.

Democrats also won an additional 11 weeks of jobless pay for workers who have now been unemployed for so long theyve exhausted the state and federal benefits currently available.

The stimulus checks account for $166 billion and the unemployment provisions cost $120 billion, less than the $180 billion for unemployment the bipartisan group that first negotiated the compromise proposed. Top lawmakers agreed to shorten the duration of the unemployment insurance benefit in order to help make room for the direct payments.

Republicans insisted that the bill cost less than $1 trillion, an arbitrary constraint that explains why the direct payment are $600 instead of $1,200, like last time.

The biggest costs of the bill are the small business sections. The GOP-favored Paycheck Protection Program gets $284 billion for forgivable loans to businesses. In total, business provisions account for $325 billion once you account for $20 billion in Economic Injury Disaster Loans, $15 billion for live entertainment venues and movie theaters, and several billion for other Small Business Administration programs.

Schools are also big winners in the deal, with K-12 schools, colleges and universities securing $82 billion. More than $54 billion of that will go to public schools, and more than $20 billion will go to public and private colleges.

Nearly $70 billion of the coronavirus relief deal will actually go to fighting the coronavirus. There is $22 billion for testing and tracing, $20 billion for vaccine procurement, and $9 billion for vaccine distribution.

There is also $45 billion for the transportation industry, $25 billion for rental assistance, $13 billion for increases in food benefits, $13 billion for farmers and ranchers, $10 billion for child care providers, $10 billion for the Postal Service, and $7 billion for broadband access.