When it comes to the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, the news has been dominated over the last 24 hours, and rightfully so, by the CDC’s huge announcement that fully vaccinated Americans no longer need to wear face masks in most settings, nor socially distance in most settings either.
However, that bombshell announcement threatens to obscure another important piece of coronavirus-related news that many Americans will be keenly interested in. It has to do with the nation’s economic response to the pandemic, specifically the $1,400 stimulus payments made possible by the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief legislation that President Biden signed back in March. Yes, it’s that time again — a new batch of those $1,400 stimulus checks was just sent out by the IRS.
This marks the ninth wave of new stimulus checks since the enactment of the so-called American Rescue Plan on March 11, according to the IRS announcement this week, and this latest wave included nearly 1 million stimulus payments. Added with those payments that have already been distributed, this brings the total number of checks sent out in the wake of the American Rescue Plan to around 165 million payments, with an aggregate value of about $388 billion.
Stimulus checks in this ninth batch of payments included an official payment date of May 12, and here are some additional facts to know:
- This batch of stimulus checks includes more than 960,000 direct payments, valued in total at more than $1.8 billion.
- More than 500,000 of these payments, with an aggregate value of over $1 billion, went to eligible individuals for whom the IRS previously did not have sufficient information to issue a stimulus check — though these recipients did recently file a tax return.
- According to the IRS, this batch of stimulus checks also includes “additional ongoing supplemental payments for people who earlier this year received payments based on their 2019 tax returns but are eligible for a new or larger payment based on their recently processed 2020 tax returns.” All told, this latest wave of payments included more than 460,000 of these so-called “plus-up” stimulus payments, with a value of more than $800 million — and the IRS has made more than 6 million of these supplemental payments this year.
- Finally, this new batch of payments consisted of almost half a million payments deposited into recipient bank accounts electronically (those totaled $946 million), with the remainder of the payments coming in the mail as paper checks.
As a reminder, the IRS says it will continue to make distributions of stimulus checks on a weekly basis going forward. And while most people don’t need to take action to receive a stimulus payment, the IRS is reminding people that filing a 2020 federal tax return is the best way to make sure you receive all the benefits you’re legally entitled to.
