Second stimulus check: Do you get 2000, 600, – or nothing?

A second round of stimulus checks was expected to end up in millions of US bank accounts as early as next week, thanks to the $ 900 billion financial aid package that Congress passed Monday night. But President Donald Trump’s sudden insistence on Tuesday that lawmakers raise the bill for $ 600 stimulus checks to $ 2,000 per person now throws the time and amount of the checks in question.

The transition comes after Congress added $ 600 per person check to the bill during last-minute negotiations, an amount declared too low by some lawmakers, such as Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent, and Josh Hawley of Missouri, a Republican. Trump seemed to agree with the critics and said ia video posted on Twitter on December 22 that he would not sign the financial aid package and called the stimulus checks “ridiculously low.”

“I urge Congress to amend this bill and raise the ridiculously low $ 600 dollars to $ 2,000, or $ 4,000 for a couple,” Trump said in the recorded statement.

The $ 600 checks directed by the relief bill would represent half of the $ 1,200 directed at most adults in the first round of stimulus checks. Critics had said the support would be helpful, but not enough to tide over families who have suffered incomes or jobs since the coronavirus pandemic shut down the economy in March, causing rising unemployment.

Nearly 6 in 10 consumers say they have been hit by a financial crisis due to the pandemic at the end of November, according to a recent study by TransUnion, which also found that 40% of these households had been banks with a new stimulus control to help them pay their bills.


Congress passes $ 900 billion COVID-19 package

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Mr Trump’s pushback raises new questions for millions of Americans waiting for the next round of checks.

How likely are $ 2000 checks?

Democrats support Trump’s request for $ 2,000 checks – but it is not clear how many Republicans will participate because the proposal for larger payouts would cost an estimated $ 530 billion, or about $ 385 billion more than Congress approved with the $ 600 checks, according to Heights Securities.

House Democrats said they plan to offer a bill for $ 2000 stimulus checks this Thursday, and will try to send it through unanimous consent because no one will be on the floor to vote. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday night tweeted in support of the $ 2000 checks, writing, “Let’s do it!”

She added that Republicans “repeatedly refused to say what amount the president wanted for direct checks” during the lengthy negotiations.

Wall Street analysts say they think it is most likely that the current bill – with $ 600 checks, approved by major two parties in both houses of Congress – will move forward.

“Our fundamental case is that the bill passed by Congress will become law,” Raymond James analyst Ed Mills said in a December 22 research note.

How about the time of the checks?

With Trump’s return, it seems increasingly unlikely that stimulus controls would begin to reach people’s bank accounts as early as next week, as Finance Minister Steven Mnuchin had predicted on December 21.

Another round of negotiations could delay the bill by several days, while a veto from Mr. Trump may delay the introduction of a bill by weeks.

There are some ways this could play out, according to Wall Street analysts. Congress could agree to the $ 2,000 checks early next week and pave the way for Mr. Trump to sign the bill, but it is unclear whether Republican lawmakers will agree to the change, Heights Securities noted.

If Mr. Trump vetoes the bill, “things can really fall apart,” Heights Securities said. Congress may try to pass the bill again in the new congressional session, which begins on January 3, but lawmakers may try to review certain provisions of the bill, such as the amount per stimulus check, which could again delay the passage, they predicted.

How about the $ 600 checks?

Currently, some analysts say it is most likely that the bill with $ 600 checks will go forward, even if the road is “complicated”, says Mills of Raymond James.

The checks would represent half of the amount directed at most U.S. households in the spring, when the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (or CARES Act) approved $ 1,200 checks for eligible adults.

According to the bill passed by Congress, a group of people would receive more money in the second round of stimulus checks than the first: dependent children, who would receive the same $ 600 checks as adults, compared to the $ 500 checks children received through CARES. the team in the spring.


Congress reaches agreement on COVID finances …

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Single people earning up to $ 75,000 would receive $ 600, while married couples earning up to $ 150,000 would receive $ 1,200.

The second round of controls would have the same type of income settlement as in the CARES Act, with stimulus check payments reduced for incomes over $ 75,000 per individual or $ 150,000 per married couple.

The amount of payment that individuals receive would be reduced by $ 5 for every $ 100 of revenue earned above these thresholds, according to the House Appropriations Committee. It is similar to the CARES law, but fewer taxpayers with higher incomes would qualify for the checks under this formula compared to the previous bill.

The second stimulus check would be phased out completely for singles earning more than $ 87,000 or married couples earning more than $ 174,000 – compared to the CARES law settlement for singles earning more than $ 99,000 and for couples earning more than $ 198,000 .

To check how much you can get, you can go to Omni Calculator’s other stimulus calculator for an estimate.

$ 600 for each “addicted” child

Apart from the smaller stimulus checks for adults, the second major change under the congressional bill is the amount provided for addicted children: $ 600 for each child, up from $ 500 in the CARES Act.

However, the bill states that $ 600 would be directed at each dependent child under the age of 17, which means that adults who are still alleged to be addicted – such as students and older high school students – would not qualify for the checks.

Adult relatives, such as the elderly who are claimed to be dependent on adult children’s tax returns, would also not qualify for the checks. Excluding college students and other adult relatives was a matter of debate with the first round of scrutiny, where some families argued that older relatives should also qualify for the payments.

A family with two parents with two dependent children can receive up to $ 2,400 under the provision, lawmakers said.

“Mixed-status” households

Couples that include one immigrants without a green card would also qualify for the controls, a provision retroactive to the CARES law, the summary said.

This is important for many families because the first round of stimulus checks only went to US citizens or immigrants with foreign status, also known as a green card. Legal immigrants without a green card, as well as undocumented immigrants, were excluded – and American citizens married to immigrants without a green card were also excluded, as were their children, even if the young relatives are citizens.

Denying checks to US citizens because of their spouses or parental relationship with an immigrant caused moods earlier this year over what the plaintiff claimed was an unconstitutional act.

How about social security beneficiaries?

One error in the first incentive payments was one slower rollout for recipients of social security, as well as recipients of supplementary security income, beneficiaries of the Railway Pension Council and veterans of administration. Because some of these recipients do not file self-declarations – which the IRS trusted to distribute the earliest incentive payments – millions of them waited weeks or months to receive their checks.

But the new bill would ensure that these recipients would receive the $ 600 checks automatically, according to Senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, who worked on a two-party stimulus bill that became the framework for the latest negotiations.

“I am particularly pleased that the final text of the assistance package includes my two-part bill to ensure that recipients of social security, supplementary security income and certain VA benefits will receive these payments automatically,” Hassan said in an email to CBS MoneyWatch.

This means that millions of social security, SSI, VA and railway pension benefits do not risk missing payments, she added.

Additional stimulus benefits:

$ 300 a week in extra unemployment benefits

Aside from the $ 600 incentive checks, the incentive bill also includes an additional $ 300 per week in unemployment benefits. This means that unemployed workers would receive their regular state unemployment benefits, plus $ 300 in addition until March 14, 2021.

The Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) program, which includes gamblers and the self-employed, would also be expanded, as would the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation (PEUC) program, which provides additional weeks of unemployment benefits to those who have lost their regular state unemployment benefits.

PPP loans for small businesses

The paycheck protection program would be expanded by an additional $ 284 billion in forgivable loans. Part of the financing will be set aside for what is described in the bill as very small companies through lenders such as Minority Depository Institutions, after criticism that the first round of PPP loans is overlooked by many minority and women-owned companies.

The PPP program would also extend the competence of non-profit organizations and local newspapers, television and radio broadcasters.

An additional $ 20 billion in disaster relief loans for economic damage would be set aside for low-income businesses, while $ 15 billion would be directed at live venues, independent cinemas and cultural institutions, which have been forced to cut back or shut down due to pandemics.

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