The Updated Stimulus Checks in the United States

The House Democrats’ revised a stimulus bill. It will restore some popular programs that were devised to help families weather the coronavirus pandemic. The central part is $1,200 per adult stimulus checks targeted to low- and middle-income families.

On Monday, Democratic lawmakers introduced the measure. It was ahead of negotiations with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. In a statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that the bill would reflect a package that is $1.2 trillion less than the Democrat’s original HEROES Act in May. The HEROES Act failed to advance during opposition from Republicans. The new bill will be the updated HEROES Act. It will stand for Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions Act.

Also, the new bill will restore $600 in extra weekly jobless benefits. Until expiring in July, it provided a lifeline to tens of millions of adults. Those adults lost their job when the coronavirus crippled the economy in March.

The nation’s unemployment rate declined to 8.4% in August from a high of 14.7% in April. According to an estimate from the Economic Policy Institute, more than twenty-one million workers remain jobless or out of the workforce because of the coronavirus.

Restoring the $600 of supplementary in a weekly jobless benefit will provide a critical income boost. Rebeca Dixon works at the National Employment Law Project. She is the executive director there. In an email, Dixon said it would boost mainly for recipients in states where unemployment compensation is capped by at sub-poverty-levels.

Stimulus Checks

Nevertheless, the odds of passing the bill are long. A push to send the bill to a vote this week would have a little chance of success. Heights Securities analysts give it a fifteen percent chance of providing stimulus relief before the November 3 presidential election. Nevertheless, continued negotiations between Mnuchin and Democrats may signal the bill is gaining traction. That is what analysts note.

However, even if the bill will fail to progress, the legislation can become the basis for another stimulus round. It will be a case if Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden wins the White House and Democrats gain control of the state.

A second stimulus payment will mirror the initial round of checks. In March, the CARES Act, or the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, authorized it.

Individual taxpayers with incomes of up to $75,000 would be eligible to receive $1,200. Married taxpayers with incomes of up to $150,000 would be eligible to receive $2,400. For each dependent, there was $500.

The taxpayers will see their payments reduced if they earn above those limits, as with the first round. They will phase out completely at $198,000 for married couples and $99,000 for single taxpayers.

One important change is how the updated stimulus bill will treat dependents. Only children under seventeen years old received the $500 payments in the first round. Adult dependants (over seventeen) were excluded. That meant that college students and older high school students could not qualify for the $500 checks.

That is the situation of the stimulus checks in the United States. Let us wait and see how the new bill will serve the economy.