House approves $2.7 billion in payments to 9/11 victims after years of delay

Republicans said Democrats took too long to provide compensation for thousands of 9/11 victims, including spouses and children, but the House passed $2.7 billion Friday after years of delay.

Initially, more than 5,000 victims, spouses and children who had already been paid by the September 11 Victims Compensation Fund were not eligible to receive compensation from the USSTF. That led to disparities in compensation payouts for some families. Congress fixed the problem in 2019 by granting those people eligibility under the USSTF program. Pete Kasperowicz is a politics editor at Fox News Digital. He can be reached at Peter.Kasperowicz@Fox.com and his Twitter handle is @PeteKDCNews.

While these people are now eligible, they had missed out on payments delivered in 2017 and 2018. To address that problem, Congress asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to estimate the amount owned for missing those past payments.