Third Stimulus Check -- Here's What We Know So Far

Third Stimulus Check -- Here's What We Know So Far

Stimulus Check Update: Third Stimulus Check -- Here's What We Know So Far

by Dana George | Jan. 13, 2021

There is already a call for new, larger stimulus checks to be sent to the American people.

Before the most recent stimulus checks for $600 went out the door, there was already a push for the incoming Congress to pass another round. Here's what we know about a third stimulus check.

Proven need

Given the number of struggling Americans, it is difficult to imagine a scenario in which another round of stimulus checks is not sent. According to Earnin, a financial services app, it took the neediest Americans only one week to spend the initial $1,200 checks received last spring. When paying for food and medicine is an issue, $1,200 does not last for long.

Political promise

When President-elect Joe Biden learned that Congress had agreed to $600 checks, he called it a "down payment" on the money needed. Biden later sent out a tweet saying, "$600 is simply not enough when you have to choose between paying rent or putting food on the table. We need $2,000 stimulus checks."

While campaigning for Democrats in the Georgia Senate run-off, Biden said the election of Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff would not only give the Democrats the majority vote in the Senate, it would also allow Congress to get $2,000 checks "out the door immediately, to help people who are in real trouble."

Potential compromise

The CARES Act, signed into law on March 27, 2020, allowed for a maximum of $1,200 per eligible adult. The recent stimulus passed in late December, called the COVID-Related Tax Relief Act, cut that amount down to $600. Because the $600 checks have either been deposited into bank accounts or are on their way, there's a fair chance that Republican (and some Democratic) members of Congress will balk at the idea of sending another $2,000.

Instead, they may want to use the $600 as a true down payment and vote to make the third-round payments $1,400. In short, they will argue that combining the current $600 checks with $1,400 checks will equal the $2,000 the House of Representatives has been asking for.

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