Amid the ongoing debate over a new coronavirus relief package, progressives in Congress are advocating $ 2,000 stimulus checks – not just once, but every month, until the pandemic is over.
More than 50 House Democrats, led by Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, sent a letter to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday urging his government to support recurring direct cash payments.
“One more check is not enough,” wrote Omar, probably referring to the $ 1,400 payment included in the president’s $ 1.9 trillion aid package.
The group of lawmakers suggested that monthly payments should be directed towards those “who need it most and will spend it fastest”, as well as “all immigrant workers, refugees and their families”. Dependents and those excluded from the first two stimulus checks must also be eligible, they said.
“Many families cannot wait 8 months between payments,” said the letter. “To really rebuild better, families need stability and certainty through continual relief – they cannot be at the mercy of an impasse in Congress.”
But some experts reject the idea of a monthly stimulus check, arguing that there are better ways to provide relief to struggling Americans and boost the economy.
“I don’t necessarily know that providing $ 2,000 a month would necessarily be the right approach at this stage,” said Gregory Daco, chief economist at Oxford Economics. Newsweek.
Daco, citing an urgent need for help, said the government should send the third round of stimulus checks “immediately” to cover families’ financial needs, but he avoided endorsing a monthly payment.
Instead, he argued, lawmakers should seek more targeted help for those most affected by the health crisis. This support could come from the extension and expansion of unemployment insurance, from the increase in the child tax credit and from the provision of resources for rent assistance, among other measures.
“We know that in Congress things tend to take a long time,” said Daco. “I don’t know if it is a very constructive approach to propose now those $ 2,000 checks that Republicans will say no to, and I don’t even know if moderate Democrats would say yes. You are essentially delaying the potential delivery of stimulus in favor of dragging discussions. and most likely they bring nothing ”.
Bernard Yaros Jr., an economist at Moody’s Analytics, agreed that “there are more economical ways to provide relief to the economy while we negotiate the final months of the pandemic.”
He said Newsweek, “You can still write a check for $ 1,400 and then focus on other, more targeted areas.”
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This is not the first time that a $ 2,000 monthly stimulus check has been launched in Congress. In early May, then Senator Harris, Senator Bernie Sanders and Senator Ed Markey implemented legislation that would provide monthly payments of up to $ 2,000 to residents of the United States. The bill went nowhere in the Republican-controlled chamber.
“If we were going to do this, we should have done it last year,” said Robert McNab, professor of economics at Old Dominion University. Newsweek.
“If we had followed the example of other countries and had monthly stimulus payments during the height of the pandemic and continuing through the summer, then the sharp increases we saw in poverty probably would not have occurred, or at least they would have been significantly mitigated,” he said. .
In the letter to the Biden government, Omar cited data from Columbia University that concluded that the $ 1,200 checks provided in the CARES Act last March were the main reason why poverty fell by up to 4 million people at the start of the recession.
But now, with the COVID-19 vaccines being launched and the economy slowly reopening, said McNab, a “monthly payment of $ 2,000 for all Americans is not the most effective form of stimulus”.
Current legislation being debated in Congress would provide a $ 1,400 stimulus check for qualified Americans, as well as raise the minimum wage to $ 15 an hour for federal employees, allocate billions of dollars for coronavirus testing and vaccination distribution and provide state and local governments more help.
The plan, endorsed by Biden, is already facing significant Republican opposition. Democrats said they are preparing to possibly pass the measure through a reconciliation process that will not require any Republican vote.
Mark Hamrick, a senior economic analyst at Bankrate, said that time is essential to provide more relief. He noted that major problems arose when the second coronavirus package, which was signed by former President Donald Trump in December, took almost nine months to complete.
“The Biden government wants to avoid repeating this experiment with uncertainty, or lack of clarity, by advancing its legislation soon,” said Hamrick Newsweek. “The idea is to avoid any lapse in unemployment benefits and other important provisions in the aid package.”