Senate Considers Raising Stimulus Checks To $2,000 After House Approves
(Photo : Getty Images/Tasos Katopodis)
WASHINGTON, DC - DECEMBER 29: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) (R) walks after speaking on the Senate floor on Capitol Hill on December 29, 2020 in Washington, DC. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said the Senate would “begin a process” to consider larger stimulus checks for Americans from the proposed $600 to $2,000 on Wednesday.

The second series of federal stimulus checks are now being transferred to bank accounts after President Donald Trump's signing of the $900 billion stimulus bill the previous week. The implementation of the relief legislation would provide a modest lift to the 60% of Americans who have been hit hard financially due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but millions may be disappointed to discover they are among the groups who are not eligible as recipients.

Who Are Not Qualified For the Second Stimulus Checks?

On Sunday, President Trump signed the $2.3 trillion coronavirus relief and government funding bill into law following his touting of the package as a "disgrace" and delaying it for days.

According to Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin on Tuesday, the department "has delivered a payment file to the Federal Reserve for Americans' Economic Impact Payments," reported Yahoo News.

The second stimulus check differs from the first direct payment in multiple ways. One is that qualified adults will receive merely half the possible total while child dependents will get a larger amount, reported CNET.

The $600 per person stimulus checks are part of the stimulus bill passed by Congress in December 2020 and signed by the incumbent president on December 27.

Efforts by the president and Democratic leaders to bolster the so-called Economic Impact Payments to $2,000 per head have been derailed after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in December barred an attempt to vote on it, reported CBS News.

On Tuesday night, the transferring of stimulus checks to eligible Americans commenced, and paper checks will start to be dispatched on Wednesday.

Not everyone is qualified for the direct payments. Many students are not eligible, and neither do immigrants who do not have a Social Security number. Some older and disabled people would not receive a check either, alongside high-wage earners.

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Meanwhile, some groups left out of the first stimulus check could be eligible for the second. Also, the IRS and United States Treasury have a rigid deadline to hit this time around and are therefore moving faster for the transferring of the checks.

According to Wall Street analysts, efforts to increase the direct payments have a slim chance of moving forward, noting the extra billions of dollars the larger stimulus checks would cost.

In creating the most recent stimulus bill, lawmakers have sought to amend many issues that restricted payment of the first series of checks earlier this year.

For high-wage earners, if your income is too high, you would not receive a stimulus check. They are phased out for Americans at income thresholds in accordance with their 2019 tax returns.

Although a number of lawmakers pushed to involve dependents of any age, the $900 billion bill has maintained the CARES Act definition from March but boost the amount from $500 to $600 per eligible child.

It is notable that even if you are not considered a child by stimulus-check definitions, you could also not be deemed an adult who would receive their own stimulus check.

The Tax Foundation stated that no adult dependents would be eligible for the $600 checks.

The second round of stimulus checks will also have the same type of income phaseouts as in the CARES Act. The payments would be reduced for earnings above $75,000 per single person or $150,000 per married couple. 

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