Third stimulus - is it for real?

causemommysaid

Sun, Feb 28 2021, 12:26 pm

amother [ Fuchsia ] wrote:

It is not for everyone.
It is only for households making less than 100K a year.

It's for those making under 200k.

For people sending to public school that is upper middle class and they don't need it.

amother

Fuchsia

Sun, Feb 28 2021, 12:27 pm

amother [ Olive ] wrote:

There is unemployment for that. There really is no reason to give people money if they are still working and their kids are in school.
There are however other problems with the bill as most of the money is going to pet projects and to foreign countries while American citizens are getting pennies so in that case I dont care if larger families get more money as they def have more expenses. But there should be a standalone bill for the stimulus check without all the other billions included, then it would make more sense and be justified.
One congress person actually has a bill to increase the check to $10,000 a person (instead of $1400 with the rest going to pet projects or foreign countries) but I doubt that bill will even see the light of day. So the elected officials who are meant to be working for American citizens (and get paid through our taxdollars) care more about their pet projects and foreign countries than for the American citizens who elected them. Oh well.

Unemployment gives you a third of your pay plus $250 after taxes.
That would be around $350 weekly in my case and that is not enough for a household to scrape by the month.
This stimulus payment is not for everyone and has a annual income bracket.

amother

Fuchsia

Sun, Feb 28 2021, 12:28 pm

causemommysaid wrote:

It's for those making under 200k.

For people sending to public school that is upper middle class and they don't need it.

It is not for people making 200K now. It is for people who made that much annually previously.
Which could mean they have no income now at all.

amother

Forestgreen

Sun, Feb 28 2021, 12:31 pm

yksraya wrote:

nyc is still not back to normal. Many people who were previously business owners can still not re-open. (Not everyone is eligible for unemployment).

And the stimulus is also more for the money should circulate to improve economy.

As well as making people feel they can afford things in these trying times, which improves the economy.

Those business owners should be getting the money! They have to fix the unemployment system and work on getting money to all those still not earning their pre pandemic salary. For those who are back to normal financially, they should not get anything. The country can't actually afford to give away all this money, it's going to come back to bite us. They're just throwing money at a problem instead of taking the steps to fix it (fixing the unemployment glitches, easing restrictions that make no sense etc)

amother

Silver

Sun, Feb 28 2021, 12:33 pm

Jeanette wrote:

The stimulus gets phased out if you earn above $150,000 for a family of 2.

It's not just about making sure people have necessities. It's also about helping retailers and other industries get back on their feet

During times of economic distress and uncertainty, people tend to pull back on purchases. They decide to push it off for another time. But if you're trying to run a small business, youre depending on people to spend their money on you.

If they tried to target the stimulus money to the people most in need, that would add a layer of bureaucracy that would make it MORE expensive. And would make it more complicated for the people who qualify to get their money. And people would be complaining why this group got money and not that group.

As I said, if you don't need the money please donate it to a family who can use it.

If the government is so concerned about retailers, then why did they keep small businesses shut down for so long when they could have opened safely like target and walmart?

amother

Olive

Sun, Feb 28 2021, 12:34 pm

amother [ Slategray ] wrote:

For those saying there is unemployment, I was able to file for the first few weeks. In error they took it off my employer instead of pandemic unemployment and the company rates went up.

I was able to return for some time and then had to take off due to exposure by my kids. The system won't let me file under pandemic. Even regular unemployment has blocked my account. I'm not the only one. When I call they say they can't help me and hang up on me!
This is in NY. So the stimulus helps for thosw of us who should be getting pandemic unemployment and can't due to the faulty system.

Please call your local assembly person or council member or mayors office or even governors office so that these issues should be fixed.

amother [ Fuchsia ] wrote:

But that is the reason why instead of giving money to everyone, they should just increase the unemployment money for unemployed people so they can get more money while looking for a job. But they should also ensure that people are taking jobs even if its work they dont want to do so these jobs not go to foreigners who are coming in now to take them away from citizens.

causemommysaid

Sun, Feb 28 2021, 12:34 pm

amother [ Fuchsia ] wrote:

It is not for people making 200K now. It is for people who made that much annually previously.
Which could mean they have no income now at all.

And it can also mean they are still earning that much.

Either way, tax returns should not be determining who gets the stimulus.

Unemployment should be the determining factor.

amother

Olive

Sun, Feb 28 2021, 12:36 pm

yksraya wrote:

So you are admitting that capitalism does work? How ironic that democrats want socialism but then want to give everyone money to reopen the economy which is essentially admitting that trickle down economy does indeed work.

Jeanette

Sun, Feb 28 2021, 12:40 pm

amother [ Silver ] wrote:

If the government is so concerned about retailers, then why did they keep small businesses shut down for so long when they could have opened safely like target and walmart?

We are obviously going to disagree on what degree of shutdown was necessary at different stages of the pandemic.

But let's not pretend that a raging pandemic that's killed half a million plus people so far wasn't going to affect the economy, and it was only government restrictions that did it.

Jeanette

Sun, Feb 28 2021, 12:43 pm

amother [ Olive ] wrote:

Or maybe you're the one who doesn't understand economics.

A stimulus isn't trickle down. Trickle down was giving tax cuts to billionaires in the hopes that they'd be generous and hire more workers and raise their salaries. Except oops, it didn't work, and the billionaires decided to keep those billions in their own pockets instead. Shocking, I know.

amother

Pearl

Sun, Feb 28 2021, 12:55 pm

amother [ Slategray ] wrote:

I had a similar story, I was eligible for pandemic unemployment but mine never ended up going through. I wasn’t eligible for the regular unemployment (freelancer)
I would have gotten March through aug! That’s a ton of money I never saw. Meanwhile so many stay at home mommies were just mooching off the government.
So unemployment really isn’t the answer.

leah233

Sun, Feb 28 2021, 1:05 pm

amother [ Cerulean ] wrote:

Where is all the money coming from?
Are they printing more? How much more can they give without devaluation?

Officially they are borrowing it but that isn't really the the way things work. They aren’t calling up a bank who is expecting to be paid back and asking them to lend the money to finance the stimulus.

The government is “borrowing” most of stimulus money from the federal reserve which is another branch of the government. Being that the federal reserve now has a (totally worthless) IOU from the treasury they have more assets so they can now “afford” to “lend” more money out.

No one really believes the federal reserve is ever going to be paid back.

In essence it’s the modern version of printing more money at the mint to cover government expenses but officially it is borrowed. The supporters of the stimulus say that since so much money was lost from the economy during corona they are only plugging a hole so it won't cause inflation.

amother

Bisque

Sun, Feb 28 2021, 1:09 pm

amother [ Silver ] wrote:

If the government is so concerned about retailers, then why did they keep small businesses shut down for so long when they could have opened safely like target and walmart?

Most people weren't interested in shopping at small businesses anyway. They were ordering online, which big places like Walmart was set up for.

amother

Olive

Sun, Feb 28 2021, 1:21 pm

Jeanette wrote:

Except that billionaires typically own multiple properties (usually in different states/countries) which means they pay millions in property taxes a year thousands of which goes to public schools they dont even send their kids to. And they pay full price for their kids to attend schools and expensive colleges so they are spending thousands there as well. And then they pay for airfare, hotels, spas, restaurants, etc so people working in those fields benefit as well. Which brings us to the stimulus check and posters saying that its to help the economy open which is admitting that spending money you have helps businesses and their employees. If you dont have the money then you cant spend it and stores are forced to close and employees suffer. So capitalism works, otherwise there wouldnt be a need to send people a stimulus check to reopen the economy and help businesses and their employees get back on their feet. You cant have it both ways.

amother

Silver

Sun, Feb 28 2021, 1:34 pm

amother [ Bisque ] wrote:

Most people weren't interested in shopping at small businesses anyway. They were ordering online, which big places like Walmart was set up for.

Do you have a source for this? How in the world do you know that "most people werent interested in shopping in small businesses?" Many people absolutely were interested. we just couldn't because they were closed. My daughter learned how to walk at one point, and I absolutely would have gone to a local shoe store so get properly fitted. They were closed so I had no choice but to order from Amazon. Many of the local small businesses do not have websites. Guess what? That shoe store closed down for good because they couldn't afford their expenses anymore. This is a store that has been opened for years and was always super busy. And its not he only store in my neighborhood that was forced to close because of the lack of shoppers. I can think of least 5 just within a few blocks of my house.