750K Floridians still without stimulus
To receive relief checks, they need to contact IRS by Oct. 15
More than two months since Congress and President Trump passed a historic relief package that would get cash directly to households, 12 million Americans — including 750,000 Floridians — have still not received their stimulus checks, a new report says.
Only California surpassed Florida in the number of individuals who haven’t gotten the payouts, with 1,082,000.
The stimulus checks, which Trump said would bring “urgently needed relief” to people whose lives have been devastated by the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic, were disbursed as part of a $2 trillion package signed into law on
March 27. They guaranteed onetime $1,200 payments to adults who made less than $99,000 per year and an additional $500 for each of their children.
In all, 159 million Americans have already received their checks from the Internal Revenue Service, totaling a collective $267 billion. But the millions of Americans still waiting are “among those who most need the
payments to cover essential expenses,” according to the author of the report, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a progressive think tank in Washington D.C. that studies government policies.
They include individuals who make too little to file tax returns and aren’t enrolled in any federally administered benefits, such as Social Security, Veterans Affairs pension or disability benefits. They are largely very low-income families and adults — individuals who make less than $12,400 a year, single parents who make less than $18,650 and married couples that make less than $24,800.
The CBPP estimates that 9 million of those people are on food stamps and Medicaid. Homeless people also have to a great extent missed out on the stimulus payments.
Minorities have also been left out, the report found. More than a quarter of the 9 million people still waiting on checks are black and nearly a fifth are Latino.
“This group of nonfilers eligible for payments are disproportionately people of color because they are likelier to have lower incomes due to historical racism and ongoing bias and discrimination,” the CBPP reported.
People who haven’t gotten checks have until Oct. 15 to get their information to the Internal Revenue Service and submit either a 2019 tax return or, for individuals who aren’t required to file tax returns, an online nonfiler form that can be found at www.irs.gov/coronavirus /non-filers-enter-paymentinfo-here.
Folks can also find out the status of their stimulus check and input up-to-date direct deposit information at www.irs.gov/coronavirus /get-my-payment.
For those who received a physical check, but it was lost, stolen or damaged, you can trace on your payment by calling the IRS at 800-919-9835 or submit a Form 3911 at www.irs.gov/ pub/irs-pdf/f3911.pdf. There have been reports of some recipients mistaking the checks or prepaid cards as junk mail and throwing them away.
The CBPP urged state and local governments and organizations to launch “an aggressive outreach program” to make sure those who are eligible can get the money. Agencies that administer food stamps and Medicaid and homeless organizations should communicate with residents who are owed checks, the group said.
The Florida Policy Institute, another progressive group that advances state policies, called upon Gov. Ron DeSantis to “implement a robust outreach program.”
“The CARES act payments provide a muchneeded boost to families trying to pay rent and put food on the table during this unprecedented health and economic crisis,” said Sadaf Knight, CEO of the organization. “Florida leaders must work to ensure hundreds of thousands of residents don’t miss out on this relief for their families and our community.”
There is a chance Congress could distribute a second round of stimulus checks.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said the White House is “seriously considering” additional stimulus payments, the Wall Street Journal reported, but there’s been no official decision whether Trump will advocate for them in Congress’ next relief package.
Trump appears to instead be favoring a wide range of tax-cut proposals for businesses, signaling the federal government’s shift from providing relief directly to residents to encouraging businesses to reopen and for workers to return to their jobs.
House Democrats in early May proposed a second round of checks as part of a $3 trillion relief package that also would have allowed checks to go to college students, adult dependents and in some cases undocumented immigrants, but it was quickly shot down by Senate Republicans.