WASHINGTON—Members may soon be filing into their credit unions with checks to deposit from the federal government as part of a stimulus package response to the coronavirus outbreak.
The amount of the individual checks has not been determined, and that’s if the proposal passes at all, and while a figure of $1,000 has been most frequently cited during negotiations, several Democratic senators have drafted a letter that calls for immediate $2,000 payments to all U.S. adults and children in families earning below $90,000 (for singles) and $180,000 for couples.
That same plan calls for additional payments if the coronavirus pandemic continues through the Summer.
Estimates of the total size of the stimulus package have ranged from $750 billion to $1 trillion.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has pitched Senate Republicans on a package that would include roughly $250 billion in direct payments, according to a White House official cited by the Wall Street Journal. The official said the administration would push for additional direct payments in the coming weeks, if needed.
“It is a big number. We’ve put a proposal on the table that would inject a trillion dollars into the economy,” Mnuchin said during a press conference.
Mnuchin told Republican senators that if the plan is approved the first checks would be sent to Americans by the end of April. He added the checks would be means-tested to ensure they don’t go to “wealthy” people. "Wealthy” had not yet been defined when Mnuchin discussed the proposal.
In addition, the federal government is postponing the April 15 tax payment deadline to give millions of Americans another 90 days to pay any taxes due on 2019 income.
As CUToday.info has reported, Congress has already passed an $8.3 billion package of relief aimed at reducing the effects from the coronavirus pandemic, and other legislation is currently before Congress.