Last month, Representatives Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Tim Ryan (D-OH) released The Emergency Money for the People Act that would provide a $2,000 monthly stimulus check to every American age 16 or older who earned less than $130,000 per year. It would also give those with qualifying children an additional $500 per month.
It seems that idea is gaining traction in the Senate as well.
A day after Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) said that he and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) were working on a bill of “Rooseveltian” proportions, calling on memories of the New Deal, a group of senators have released a proposal for a monthly stimulus payment.
Today, Senators Kamala Harris (D-CA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and Ed Markey (D-MA) have released the Monthly Economic Crisis Support Act. This act would send a monthly $2,000 payment to individuals who make less than $100,000 a year but it provides an additional $2,000 per child for up to three children per family.
The eligibility rules for this bill are similar to the CARES Act but the income limits have increased. The lower limit is much higher but the phase out is faster too. The payment methods would be similar to the CARES Act as well, though likely a smoother process as the IRS has processed much of the information already for the first stimulus check.
Much like the first stimulus check, there is a phase out. For this check, the phase out will be 10% of one’s adjusted gross income over the limit: Today In: Personal Finance
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- Single filers – $100,000
- Joint filers – $200,000
- Head of Household – $150,000
If you are single filer with an adjusted gross income of $110,000 – or $10,000 over the limit – then your monthly benefit would decrease by 10 of the amount over the limit – or $1,000.
The maximum benefit would go to joint filers under the income limit with three or more children. In that case, they would receive $10,000 per month – $2,000 per adult and $6,000 for their three children.
The bill also would make these payments retroactive to March and they would continue for three months after when the Health and Human Services Department declared the public health emergency has ended.
Politico has published a discussion draft of the bill that you can read for yourself.
This bill would help the vast majority of Americans – but is unlikely to pass due to the sheer cost. According to Social Security Wage Statistics, 90.67% of all wage earners in America earn less than $100,000 per year.
Just counting those wage earners, and many Americans that earned wages in 2018 are out of work, this would send a payment to at least 152 million Americans each month.
And if each of those Americans were just a single filer with no children, that’s $304,000,000,000 in total payments each and every month. And that doesn’t even consider the millions of Americans who don’t earn wages and pay into Social Security!
President Trump has outright said that he would only accept the next stimulus bill if it included a payroll tax waiver of some kind – but the sheer cost of this bill makes it unlikely to pass.
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