Experts Still Guessing as to Who Will Get $1,400 Stimulus Checks

After several months of worrisome waiting, it finally appears as though a third stimulus check could be coming our way…but will you be getting one?

The relief has been a long time coming, with many Americans expressing their disdain for the delay, which was due in no small part to partisan bickering on Capitol Hill.

There had also been a late-arriving argument over the amount of the checks, after Democrats had promised their constituents $2,000 checks during their 2020 campaigns, and they are now set to receive only $1,400, (with another $600 direct payment having been executed during the late stages of the Trump administration).

The amount was too much for some conservatives, and the Biden administration’s compromise was to reduce the distribution of the checks while not decreasing the individual amount.  This means that some folks who received the latest $600 check will not get a $1,400 one.

President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan would provide a third round of federal stimulus checks to millions of Americans. Yet while lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have expressed support for the proposal, there is less agreement on who should be eligible for the $1,400 direct payments.

Congressional Democrats are moving forward with passing Mr. Biden’s relief plan through a process called budget reconciliation, which would allow the Senate to approve the effort without any Republican support. As the process moves forward, House and Senate committees will discuss spending priorities before drafting and voting on legislation. That’s expected to occur later in the week of February 8, according to economists at Goldman Sachs.

Economists are assuming that there will be some limit to who receives the stimulus based on income.

Wall Street analysts aren’t banking on many changes, with Goldman Sachs expecting the same income thresholds as with the first checks — $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 for married couples.

Some lawmakers are pushing back against limiting the payout to a smaller group of households, such as Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont.

“It is absurd that some Democrats think we should tell a worker making $52,000 a year that they are ‘too rich’ and cannot get the full $2000 benefit we promised,” he wrote February 7 on Twitter.

The payments aren’t coming all that soon either, with experts believing that it could still be several weeks before Americans receive the next round of stimulus.