Friday, July 10, 2020

Fewer Americans may get a second stimulus check. What we know about the next round of payments

Employee Linda Tarkenton holds a blank U.S. Treasury check before it’s run through a printer at the U.S. Treasury printing facility in Philadelphia.
Getty Images

Another batch of one-time stimulus checks could be coming. But this time, far fewer Americans could get paid.

President Donald Trump has made it clear that he wants to include another batch of checks in the next coronavirus legislation.

But Senate Republicans have been slow to warm to the idea. One reason: the high cost of cutting millions of checks to Americans.

Now, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., is considering a compromise: disbursing funds to people making $40,000 or less a year.

The new threshold would dramatically reduce the number of Americans eligible for the checks. That would help the GOP keep the new spending package to about $1 trillion.

Congress is poised to consider the issue when it returns later this month. At that time, it will also consider whether or not to continue giving unemployed Americans an additional $600 per week in unemployment benefits.

The first round of stimulus payments was authorized by Congress with the $2 trillion CARES Act. The stimulus checks amounted to about $300 billion of that spending.

The U.S. government has sent about 160 million payments worth $269 billion, according to a June Government Accountability Office report.

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