Last week, as Congress scrambled to finish a $2.2 trillion coronavirus rescue plan, Sen. Ron Wyden, of Oregon adjourned to one of the private meeting rooms in the Capitol with Sen. Charles Grassley and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin to negotiate some finance and tax issues.

But as the Washington DC power trio and their staffers sat down, they recoiled. In the era of social distancing, they were sitting too close to one another. The ornate Capitol meeting room suddenly felt like a public health hazard.

It was another disconcerting moment in a deadly serious time. With the coronavirus running rampant across the country, Americans were being asked to stay in their homes, employees were being asked to stay away from their jobs, some businesses were being shut down. Thousands were dying, millions were losing their jobs.

Facing “this economic wrecking ball” Wyden said, has made recent weeks the most daunting in the Capitol since the 2008 economic collapse. But the virus also was a “once-in-a-lifetime crisis,” Wyden said, that offered unique opportunities.

And Wyden had a plan. By happy coincidence, he and his people had been working on a thorough modernization and overhaul of the federal unemployment insurance program for much of the prior year.

As the bill approached a vote, Wyden and his allies had managed to include as much as $317 billion worth of expanded unemployment benefits into the legislation. A last-ditch Republican attack led by Sen. Lindsey Graham went nowhere.

On Friday, President Trump signed the rescue bill into law.

For the suddenly jobless, that means they’ll get $600 a week on top of the money they would get from the existing unemployment program -- in most states a maximum of $450 -- through the end of July. And for the first time, the pool of workers eligible for unemployment will expand to include independent contractors, part-timers and gig workers.

Wyden, a veteran of 24 years in the Senate, is unabashedly proud. “You want to help the average joe out there,” Wyden said. “And we won. This is probably one of the most important things I’ve accomplished in public life.”

A year ago, when unemployment was hitting historic lows and a pandemic was a cheesy late-night movie, Wyden went to his staff with a strange request. He wanted them to dig into the federal unemployment program learn all its flaws and bring him the fixes.

His people told Wyden his instincts were good -- the 85-year-old program needed a thorough modernization and overhaul. Most recipients were paid a maximum of just $450 a week. Plus, if you were self-employed or if you had a job in the gig economy you generally weren’t eligible.

Sources said Wyden wanted badly to introduce an unemployment modernization bill. But it would have been difficult given the Republican control of the Senate and the White House. As he considered his options, the virus made its North American beachhead in the Seattle area. Barely two months later, the U.S. has more COVID-19 cases than any other country in the world.

Americans have learned a harsh truth in recent months.

The American economy, even the roaring Trump economy, doesn’t stand a chance against a pandemic. As political leaders begged citizens to stay home and isolate themselves, they also restricted operations at businesses, shut down schools and took other steps they hope will stop the spread of the virus.

Sports were cancelled, travel dragged to a near standstill, bars were closed.

“The U.S. has seen a sudden stop in economic activity,” Oregon economist Josh Lehner wrote on March 25. “The unemployment rate will basically double and in some places triple overnight.”

After months of dithering and denial, the Republican leaders got serious about a massive rescue plan. On March 19, The House Republicans unveiled their assistance package, highlighted by huge sum of money for companies. In a bill that went on for hundreds of pages, there were eight lines about unemployment insurance.

Then it was up to the Senate. As ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee Wyden was in on many of the key negotiations concerning the rescue bill. He and Grassley, chair of the finance committee, worked well together. Wyden was also impressed with Mnuchin, Trump’s powerful treasury secretary. Mnuchin “knew that he needed Democrats on board so there certainly was an incentive to work with us from the beginning,” Wyden said.

The partisan rancor boiled over at times. Democrats said the Republicans’ bill was a bailout to business. The Republicans said the Democrats were being obstructionists.

The Democrats didn’t get everything they wanted.

Wyden initially called for language that would boost unemployment insurance to the point it would match a workers’ pay at their prior job. The Republicans balked.

They compromised with an unemployment boost of $600 per week across the board.

Wyden also wanted the expanded benefits to be made permanent. Republicans cried foul. Asking them to lock in new benefits while they were trying to solve a crisis wasn’t fair.

Wyden conceded the point.

Last Thursday, South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham and three other Southern senators attacked the Wyden plan. Under the bright television lights, Graham predicted workers would quit their jobs to get at the more lucrative unemployment benefits. With a timely assist from Sen. Bernie Sanders, who threatened to delay the bill if Graham succeeded in reducing the unemployment assistance, the 11th-hour opposition got no traction.

On Friday, Trump signed the bill into law. It is the largest fiscal relief measure ever passed by Congress.

It will provide $500 billion to help hard-hit industries and $290 billion for payments of up to $3,000 to millions of families. It will provide $350 million for small-business loans and at least $100 billion for hospitals and health systems.

Also Wyden’s prized unemployment expansion also survived largely intact. Analysts predict it will make another $250 billion available to the unemployed.

While much of the press coverage of the rescue plan has focused on the one-time payments to eligible Americans, the unemployment expansion is considerably more significant, predicted the economist Lehner. “In terms of impact, it’s huge,” he said.

Fiscal conservatives agree that it’s huge. Hugely expensive and counterproductive. Former Trump administration official Paul Winfree predicted “the act will cripple the economy by pushing people away from their employers onto unemployment insurance.

Thea Lee, of the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, said Wyden deserves credit for recognizing that these are unique times.

People are losing jobs because “we are asking businesses to close and people to stay home ,” she said. “So this extra $600 is absolutely vital.”