When the country shut itself down at the beginning of the pandemic, the legislators tried to provide the citizens with some much-needed relief through stimulus check payments.
According to the Pandemic Oversight, close to 476 million payments did go out in three separate rounds in 2020 and 2021, which added up to $814 billion in financial aid. Advocates, policymakers, and economists all went on to agree that some form of immediate relief was extremely necessary- but there was a catch added to it. While the payment did provide a lot of benefits to American households in the wake of a national emergency, it was quite clear that there were multiple setbacks in sending out billions of dollars as stimulus payments.
The Stimulus Check Payments Also Brought A Whole Host Of Issues With Itself That No One Talks About
A lot of the tax breaks that the citizens received previously have now reverted to how they were before the pandemic took place. According to Mark Steber, the Chief Tax Information Officer for Jackson Hewitt tax services, the child tax credit went down immediately. After that, the Dependent Care Credit went down as well, with earned income for singles going down too. One could no longer take a charitable donation if they didn’t itemize what was gone. There was absolutely no stimulus to add on for a new dependent. So- overall- most of the refunds started going smaller.
The stimulus check payments have also contributed to inflation. A lot of people who received aid weren’t necessarily unemployed, or even financially impacted by what was happening all over the world. The extra money provided them with more flexibility in their spending- which was quite a major driver in inflation.
