Biden Administration To Launch Massive Funeral Assistance Program For Covid Victims

WASHINGTON – Next week the Biden administration will launch a funeral assistance program that will provide up to $9,000 to cover the burial costs of each American who died of covid-19 — the largest program of its type ever offered by the federal government. The program is open to families regardless of their income, as long as they show documentation and have not already received similar benefits through another program.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has reimbursed burial costs before, but it has never offered as large of payment to so many people. In 2017, for example, FEMA paid $2.6 million to 976 people for funeral costs of victims of three hurricanes — an average of $2,664 per applicant.

But the novel coronavirus’s immense toll means a burial assistance program of an unprecedented scale is now being assembled. More than 557,000 Americans have died of covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. Because the number of people who will be eligible is not known, neither is the program’s ultimate cost — but it will easily be several billion dollars. FEMA is setting up a dedicated toll-free hotline — 1-844-684-6333 — and a call center to answer questions about the program and take applications starting Monday, April 12.

Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, both New York Democrats, have been pushing to help families pay for burials since last spring when covid-19 was ravaging their state and mobile morgues were needed to handle the surge of deaths.

Funeral aid was held up during the worst of the crisis last year until then-President Donald Trump signed a nearly $1 trillion covid stimulus bill in the final weeks of his administration. The details were never made clear, but the maximum benefit discussed at the time was $7,000 and the funeral assistance program was to be capped at $2 billion.

After President Biden took office and signed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan last month, the program was expanded. The funeral aid — even if it doubles from the $2 billion in the measure signed by Trump — is still a tiny fraction of the $1.9 trillion covid relief bill, which was opposed by all but a handful of congressional Republicans.

There are significant challenges in administrating a program of this type. Already, the FEMA website describing the funeral assistance program is alerting people to possible scams: “Fraud Alert: We have received reports of scammers reaching out to people offering to register them for funeral assistance. FEMA has not sent any such notifications and we do not contact people prior to them registering for assistance.”

According to FEMA, applicants must be “a U.S. citizen, noncitizen national, or qualified alien” who paid for funeral expenses after Jan. 20, 2020. In addition, the applicant must show a death certificate that states that the death occurred in the United States and “may have been caused by or was likely the result of COVID-19.”

If any other assistance was already received — from money available to veterans, or burial insurance, or some other program — the aid “will be reduced by the amount of other assistance the applicant received for the same expenses.”

Throughout the pandemic, some people started GoFundMe fundraising accounts online asking strangers to help pay for funerals. Local governments, nonprofits, and churches have been pitching in to help families pay funeral bills in many parts of the country, and many will welcome the help from the federal government.

The bulk of those eligible have already paid the expenses and must produce receipts and other documentation of what was paid for caskets or urns, burial plots, headstones, funerals, and other costs detailed by FEMA.