Next round of stimulus checks may be limited to people making less than $40,000

A blank US Treasury check. MSNBC/Getty.

A second round of stimulus checks could be coming but their reach could be a lot more limited than the first one. MSNBC. President Trump desires a 2nd check to help Americans suffering due to the Coronavirus outbreak and the loss of work related to the crisis. However, Senate Republicans are balking at the cost of another round of checks. Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell is suggesting a compromise where only people who made less than $40,000 a year would get the checks. This would limit the costs and help the people hit the most hard by the outbreak as 40% of people at that income level are out of work. The past check gave a full payment to people making less than $75,000 a year and with reduced payments for people making less than $99,000. 

My Comment:

If we do have a 2nd round of checks going out I think it probably is important to make sure that it only goes to people at the lower end of the income brackets. I kind of thought it was funny that people making almost $75,000 a year could get a full payment on the last check. Though I understand money doesn't go as far as it goes in Wisconsin in other parts of the country, I still thought it was crazy that people that are by all means well off got a check. 

And I do think that the lower end workers need the help the most. They have usually been left out in the cold by the US Government and let's not forget that the vast majority of them either lost their jobs or had to work in critical industries during the crisis. They are also the least likely to be able to handle the financial costs of catching the Coronavirus. That should mean something when it comes to helping them out financially. 

Is this going to happen though? I am not sure. Given that congress isn't even in session right now it's possible that things could change quite a bit. There is going to be pressure from both the right and left to either give larger checks or give them out to more people. I had heard rumors that checks as large as $4000 were being considered and without more knowledge of how the Democrats were going to act it's unclear what the final deal will be. 

Assuming that a deal is to be made at all. I think that the Democrats realize that sending checks out is a winning issue for President Trump. Despite the checks being due to congress, President Trump got a lot of the credit for the idea and he at least deserves some of it. A 2nd round of checks, happening just a little white before the election could push President Trump over the edge in November, which means that Democrats have an incentive to not allow this to happen. 

Of course blocking stimulus payments to what should be one of their constituencies is a bad move, but unfortunately the media would never play it that way. Even if it's entirely the fault of the Democrats that no bill is passed the media will still say it was because of Republicans. The Democrats may want some good press for passing the bill but if they don't get it done they might not suffer from it all that much. 

Still, all of this is speculation at this point. We are still a ways away from Congress coming back in session and until then we won't know for sure if new payments are coming out or not. I personally am not sure either way as I can see that people need help but I also wonder where all this money is going to come from...