The financial relief from the third stimulus checks has had extremely positive effects. US citizens who could pay their bills and afford their daily meals have increased over the last month. However, millions of Americans are still reeling from the financial setback of the pandemic according to recent data.
The Future After Stimulus Checks
The latest round of stimulus checks started reaching bank accounts by 12th March. As such, the percentage of US citizens who failed to cover their household expenses decreased to 28.9 from 33.8 by late March. The data was reported by the United States Census Bureau between March 17th and 29th. The percentage of US citizens that can afford a meal infrequently or cannot afford sufficient food in a week also decreased to 8.8 from 10.7.
However, this still leaves approximately 18 million adult citizens who cannot fill their stomachs. The figure is significantly higher than that of Americans reportedly going hungry before the pandemic started in 2019. This data was reported by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Claire Zipple, one of CBPP’s senior analysts, explained that the recent numbers are a very welcome improvement. However, it also shows that quite a number of Americans still require additional help if they are to pay off their debts and reduce the numbers to what was there, pre-pandemic. This is not even including reducing the numbers further.
In most cases, the financial hardships are being reportedly caused by a decrease in regular income, partly caused due to the pay cuts, furloughs, and unemployment. Nearly 54 million citizens have reported that they are not using their paychecks or earnings to cover their weekly expenses.
As such, nearly 50 million have reportedly turned to loans for the weekly expenses according to the CBPP. Borrowers are often without children.
