- The latest new stimulus check update we have is that President Trump is supportive of sending out additional payments to Americans — and that details about how this will be done should be coming soon.
- However, just because Congress looks likely to approve new coronavirus relief legislation that includes additional stimulus check payments, that doesn’t mean everyone will get a new check, or that the same people who got one last time will do so again.
- Here’s at look at who’s likely to get a new coronavirus stimulus check.
President Trump made a brief comment a week ago now that set off of a wave of news headlines, thanks to him committing to the imminent arrival of a new wave of stimulus checks to help Americans still struggling amid the coronavirus economy. “I have a lot of viewers in Florida, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, who are still struggling economically, sir,” a reporter asked the president. “They spent all of that first stimulus check, are you going to get them a second stimulus check? Trump’s response was, “Yeah, we are,” before the president explained that we’d know more details about what’s coming in a few weeks’ time.
This was arguably the final piece of the puzzle needed to kick-start discussions in Washington DC that have been simmering for several weeks now over the possibility of new checks and the contours of what any such legislation might look like. A handful of new stimulus check ideas have already been floated by US Senators, including one proposal that would give Americans a steady stream of stimulus checks through the end of the coronavirus pandemic. But that actually brings up a key point which has gotten a little lost in all the talk about new checks — would everyone get one who got a payment during the first wave of payments?
Not necessarily. While Democrats control the US House of Representatives, leaders in the Republican-controlled Senate are already on record for musing that additional payments should be more targeted (and, thus, sent to fewer people) than the first wave of checks were which stemmed from the $2.2 trillion coronavirus relief package Congress passed back in March.
That would no doubt be fine with the president, who didn’t really specify that most people would get a new check — just that new checks are coming.
The HEROES Act passed by the House of Representatives in May is awaiting action in the Senate and could serve as a jumping-off point for what the final legislation governing new stimulus checks looks like. Its provisions also include stimulus checks for people who didn’t get one the first time, including college students as well as non-US citizens.
Based on who did and didn’t get payments the first time around, and taking into account the assumption that new stimulus checks may be distributed on a more targeted basis, here are a few predictions about who can possibly expect to get a new payment soon:
- Families of as many as five people in the same household
- Individuals whose adjusted gross income on their most recent tax return (for either 2018 or 2019) was less than $99,000
- People who receive Social Security Disability Insurance
- And college students, as well as a parent’s dependent children over the age of 17.
We should add that there’s at least an outside shot that when it comes to new stimulus checks, though, the next round of payments might not go to people, at all. Future checks could be targeted instead at struggling businesses and industry sectors, giving small businesses cash, for example, to help them avoid resorting to furloughs and layoffs as the coronavirus pandemic lingers.
