During the Great Depression , President Franklin Roosevelts New Deal initiative established a series of government programs and agencies that put thousands of Americans back to work, building large-scale infrastructure and conservation projects.

On Thursday, Senate Democrats proposed a similar program designed to employ those who have lost their jobs because of the coronavirus pandemic, which this week numbered more than 38 million people.

The Jobs to Fight COVID-19 Act of 2020 , introduced by Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, would give states and localities $100 billion in grants to hire and train newly unemployed workers to perform pandemic response work, including contact tracing, surveillance, mitigation and cleaning services.

With nearly 40 million people unemployed, we need solutions that meet the scale of the problem, Schatz said in a statement. Our bill will put people back to work and provide the workforce we need to stop the spread of the coronavirus and help us safely reopen.

Senators who co-sponsored the measure included Democrats Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey.