Millions of families were without income when the US shut down after Covid-19.
The emergency aid package was passed by congress. The checks were for up to $1,200 per adult.
Many Americans refer to the checks as "stimulus checks." There have been three rounds of such checks.
The size and scope of the direct checks was a new experiment for the government, which had previously deployedStimulus checks.
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Howard Gleckman, senior fellow at the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, said that the three of them were much larger than the government had done before.
The IRS and the U.S. Department of the Treasury were more efficient at using the money.
In the first few weeks of the firstStimulus check program in 2020, the IRS deployed 89.5% of the payments.
The IRS said on March 17 that it had disbursed 90 million payments after Congress approved a third check.
The IRS gets a lot of credit. They did an amazing job of getting these checks out.
There were some initial checks that were sent to the dead.
Some well-to-do taxpayers who were unaffected by the Pandemic were also given money.
The tax foundation's senior economist and research manager said there was a tradeoff between speed and accuracy.
IfLawmakers had other options, the payments would have been more targeted. The nature of the Pandemic made it more important for lawmakers to get relief quickly.
She said that about 90 percent of taxpayers received money.
In order to limit how much people with higher incomes received, the third checks were phased out more quickly.
There was a decrease in the number of households spending the payments. The first checks were mostly for household spending, but the later checks were used to save or pay down debt.
One issue that persisted throughout the deployment of the checks was reaching non-tax filers who do not typically submit returns because of their low incomes.
President Joe Biden renewed government efforts to find 8 million people who were still without checks.
Some people may have fallen through the cracks even though the number has been reduced.
There was just no easy way for them to get the money.
The co-president of Community Change, a national organization focused on helping low income people, said it was difficult to get money into the hands of vulnerable people.
It was difficult for them to get the money.
The complexity of the forms may have made people hesitant to sign up for payments.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., at the U.S. Capitol to honor late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., in Washington, D.C., on July 29, 2020.Capitol Hill lawmakers were at odds over sending more money. A round of $2,000 checks was advocated by the former president. The President-elect also did.
After Biden was elected, Washington leaders agreed to a second round of payments of $600 per person.
The economy was about to get better.
The third round of checks was probably unnecessary. At the time, I thought it was a good call.
Now that the U.S. has a high inflation rate, some argue that the money from theStimulus could have helped.
The US is experiencing a uniquely higher inflation than the rest of the world. The size of the relief overall is what drives it.
The surge in prices has been caused by supply, not demand, according to Gleckman.
There are constraints on factory workers due to the Pandemic and problems with shipping from overseas.
It is too convenient to blame inflation on excessiveStimulus payments They didn't have anything to do with this, but they don't have much to do with it.