The Stimulus Checks Have Proven To Be Just A Waste Of Money In Many Cases

Written By BlabberBuzz | Sunday, 09 May 2021 05:40 PM
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The Stimulus Checks Have Proven To Be Just A Waste Of Money In Many Cases

A year after most eligible Americans got—and probably spent—the first federal stimulus checks of the COVID-19 age, the Internal Revenue Service proceeds to sit on about $2.1 billion in payments that were never taken by their intended recipients..

In all, according to the IRS, of the approximately 160 million payments that were carried out in the first round of stimulus after the passage of the $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act in March of 2020, roughly 1.25 million have never been cashed or were returned or paid back to the U.S. Treasury

Pennsylvanians, Vermonters, Montanans and Michiganders—three blue states and one red—were the most likely to leave their dollars on the table, typically $1,200 per adult and $500 for children under 17. Arizonans and Texans were the least expected to pass up the stimulus payments from Uncle Sam, according to a Newsweek analysis of data presented by the IRS in response to a Freedom of Information Act request; both states have Republican governors yet split the 2020 presidential vote, with Joe Biden eventually winning typically-red Arizona by less than 10,500 votes.

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The uncashed or returned first-round stimulus payments represent less than one percent—0.78 percent, to be specific—of the entire $270 billion the IRS sent out. That small percentage has surprised observers tracking the economic impact of the industry.

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"Taking the data at face value, it does indicate the IRS did a remarkable job of getting about 160 million checks out the door and doing it in a relatively timely manner, which is not easy when you're sending them to a lot of people who are not always easy to reach," states Shai Akabas, director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a non-partisan D.C.-based think tank. "Like any operation on this scale, an error rate of one to two percent would not be surprising. This surpasses that."

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Indeed, by early May 2020, the IRS explained it had given 130 million payments equaling $218 billion. The Treasury Department and the IRS worked through the rest of the year to reach millions of homeless, rural poor and other disadvantaged Americans to make sure that they received their money, and by October the number of payments that had not found their recipients was down to about 9 million. The application involved connecting with homeless shelters, legal aid clinics and translating information regarding the payments into over 35 languages.

As of February 2021, the IRS stated that all 160 million payments had been issued. That carried the average check to $1,687 as most payments accounted for more than one person.

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