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A man passes a closed restaurant near the Eastern Markets in Detroit, Michigan. Photograph: Seth Herald/AFP via Getty Images

Advocates for American workers praised a “historic” increase in unemployment benefits included in an emergency $2tn relief package approved by the US Senate, which will offer special “pandemic unemployment” to gig workers, self-employed workers, and some people forced to leave their jobs because of the coronavirus crisis.

But although the unemployment payments will offer months of support to many vulnerable Americans, advocates said that the bill threatens to leave too many people out. Even $2tn in emergency aid, experts said, is probably too little for the size of the crisis.

As part of the unprecedented relief package approved by the Senate on Wednesday night, millions of Americans would get an individual, $1,200 check to help them weather the economic crisis caused by the pandemic. The bill would also create a $500bn lending program for businesses, cities and states and a $367bn fund for small businesses, which would focus on helping small businesses to pay their employees’ salaries through the next weeks of pandemic-related shutdowns, rather than laying them off.

The bill’s major benefit to American workers is not that single cash payment, but the sweeping expansion of unemployment benefits, labor experts said. The bill offers laid-off workers an additional $600 a week for four months and extends unemployment benefits to gig workers, independent contractors, and others who have not previously been eligible for unemployment, including people forced to leave their jobs to care for family members with coronavirus, or to care for children whose schools have closed.