On Monday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that a second stimulus check “could well” be a part of the next economic relief package that’s expected to go before the Senate later this summer.
But he indicated that the income threshold for eligible recipients may be decreased. “I think the people who’ve been hit the hardest are people who make about $40,000 a year or less,” he told reporters in Louisville, Ky., according to The Washington Post.
Indeed, a Federal Reserve report released in May found that 39 percent of people working in February with a household income below $40,000 had reported a job loss in March, compared with just 13 percent of those making more than $100,000.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell makes his way to the Senate floor. He has indicated a second stimulus payment may be part of additional stimulus relief.
The focus on lower income Americans has been echoed by members of the administration, too, who have stressed that additional stimulus relief should target those most in need.
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In an April report by the Pew Research Center, more than half of lower-income adults said they or someone in their household had lost a job or taken a cut in pay due to the coronavirus outbreak. About 53 percent of them said they would have trouble paying some of their bills that month as a result. Lower income Americans were also the most likely to say they planned to use a majority of any stimulus payment money they received to pay bills or for something essential.
“It’s the middle income and lower income groups that got hurt the most” in the pandemic, Larry Kudlow, director of the White House National Economic Council, told Fox News in late June. “Probably we would want to target those who lost their jobs and are most in need…I think that’s where it’s going.”
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Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has also pushed for additional stimulus checks but with fewer restrictions, telling NBC News in June that “the appeal of direct payments is it’s a very fair way of getting money to everybody in the economy.”
More stimulus relief could come as early as August
In May, the Democratic-led House of Representatives passed legislation that would offer a potentially larger second stimulus payment than the CARES Act had provided. Under the HEROES Act, each household member would get $1,200, including children. The income thresholds would remain the same, meaning single taxpayers earning less than $75,000 and married taxpayers earning a total of $150,000 would receive the full payments. A family of four with parents who earned less than $150,000 in adjusted gross income in 2019, for example, would get $4,800. (The HEROES Act would cap total payments at $6,000 per family.)
But in a news conference last month, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the HEROES Act is “never going to pass the Senate.”
Sen. McConnell said the Senate plans to come up with another stimulus relief package with a focus on “kids, jobs and healthcare,” and should be in the “final stages” of putting that together by the end of July.
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He has indicated that he wants to vote on additional stimulus relief before Congress goes on recess again in August. That would give the Senate 15 working days to create and debate any legislation, as it’s on recess now until July 20. Senators go back on recess again from August 10 to September 7, meaning another stimulus bill would need to be voted on by Friday, August 7.
Millions of stimulus payments are still being distributed
The Treasury Department and IRS have distributed about 160 million stimulus payments, totaling more than $260 billion, according to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin. But a Congressional committee estimated late last month that 30 million more stimulus checks may still need to be distributed under the terms of the CARES Act.
Money set aside for stimulus payments accounts for about $282 billion (or 11%) of the $2.6 trillion allocated via the CARES Act across the government to provide economic relief to businesses and individuals affected by the pandemic, according to the Government Accountability Office. (The Paycheck Protection Program accounts for the largest percentage.)
If you believe you’re eligible for a stimulus payment and haven’t received one yet, you can use the Get My Payment tool on the IRS site to track the status of your payment and get a projected deposit date. The IRS said the information is updated once daily, usually overnight. You can also call the IRS Economic Impact Payment line at 1-800-919-9835.
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