Who Is Ineligible For Coronavirus Checks
Coronavirus Checks: Who Is Ineligible?
Many Americans Won't Get Coronavirus Checks
Here's A Look At Who Is Ineligible
NBC News Josh Lederman,NBC News•April 6, 2020
WASHINGTON — For millions of Americans awaiting coronavirus cash, help is not on the way.
Although the $2 trillion stimulus bill passed last month includes payments of up to $1,200 for everyone who makes less than the limit, many Americans will fall through the cracks. That includes most college kids, immigrants without Social Security numbers and some disabled adults.
Why so many gaps? Part of it is the urgency that faced Congress as it rushed to get money to Americans as fast as possible. There wasn't much time to fine-tune the bill to address every contingency. Lawmakers opted to base eligibility on tax returns, even though many people don't file them.
Congress also wanted to ensure that the money goes to those who really need it now. Most Americans could use some extra cash even in the best of times. But some people's livelihoods have been more directly affected by the pandemic than others.
For those who qualify, payments will start going out from the IRS in mid-April. The IRS is using 2019 tax returns to determine eligibility or 2018 returns for those who haven't filed for 2019 yet.
Here's a look at who falls through the cracks:
College students and 17-year-olds
If someone else claims you as a dependent on their taxes, you won't get your own check. Parents will get an extra $500 payment per child, but that's only for kids under 17.
Most 17-year-olds, some young adults and many of the country's roughly 20 million college students are claimed by their parents as dependents. They won't get checks, and their parents won't get an extra $500.
"They're not on their own. And so you feed them and you still provide for them," said Susan Anderson of Lubbock, Texas, who has a 19-year-old at home and a 23-year-old about to graduate from college. "So you're not getting anything, and they're not getting anything. There's a huge gap."
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Disabled people whose parents support them
People who get disability benefits from the Social Security Administration or Veterans Affairs are eligible for the payments — but not disabled adults who are claimed as dependents by their parents or other relatives on their taxes.
Jennifer Irwin's son Simon, 21, who is nonverbal, lives about an hour's drive from her Delaware home at a center for disabled adults, where he was placed by the state. Because she claims him on her taxes, he won't get a check — a blow Irwin described as "another nail in the coffin."
"Just because he's not under 17 doesn't mean he should be excluded from the credit parents are getting. He's still entirely dependent. I still buy all his clothes," Irwin said. "It's discouraging. I mean, we struggle enough as it is."
Seniors living with their kids
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