Stimulus check calculator: how much would my HEROES Act payment be?
The Democrats' HEROES Act calls for a further round of coronavirus Economic Impact Payments in the US. Find out how much you could claim.
As the coronavirus pandemic began to hit the United States and the economy was forced into lockdown, the government and congress acted swiftly, passing the CARES Act, a $2.2-trillion relief bill passed on 27 March, to provide help to state and local governments hard hit by Covid-19, as well as businesses and individuals.
The main plank of the package to help hard-working individual Americans was a round of $1,200 stimulus checks (with further amounts payable for dependent children). In total some $267 billion has been sent out by way of these Economic Impact Payments (EIPs) to help Americans cope with the financial effects of a pandemic that has officially left the country in a recession, the National Bureau of Economic Research has confirmed.
Although unemployment actually fell slightly in May, a jobless rate of 13.3% nonetheless remains a whole 10% higher than it was in February, and several recent polls have shown that people across the US are clamoring for further financial support on top of the CARES Act EIPs, more commonly referred to as stimulus checks.
HEROES Act: up to $1,200 each, $1,200 per dependent
The Democrat's response to the ongoing economic crisis was the $3-trillion HEROES Act, which proposes a second round of stimulus checks to eligible people in the States. The Dems have taken the bill through the House of Representatives, although it is currently stalled, with Republicans, fearful of the cost, yet to debate it in the Senate, where they hold a majority. The Republicans are now talking about reviewing the situation in mid to late July.
Heroes Act provisions
Like the CARES Act, individuals earning below $75,000 a year would be paid a one-off stimulus check of $1,200, while those on up to $99,000 would get a tapered amount. Married joint tax filers with a shared income below $150,000 would receive $2,400.
Whereas the first round of checks included an extra $500 per family for every dependent, the HEROES Act would raise this to $1,200 each (with a maximum of three), allowing households to claim a total of up to $6,000. What's more, unlike the CARES Act, dependents aged 17 or over would not be excluded.
Calculate how much your HEROES Act check would be:
(Calculator created by Mateusz Tkaczyk and Jasmine J Mah)
HEROES Act faces opposition in GOP-controlled Senate
To become law, the HEROES Act requires to be approved by the Senate - but there it has met strong resistance from Republicans, who control the upper chamber. GOP leaders have slammed it as being DOD, "Dead on Arrival" in the Senate.
Senate-majority leader Mitch McConnell is wary of any further aid, and if he is pushed to provide further relief he is desperate to keep the total bill under $1 trillion. That said, President Donald Trump is beginning to make more encouraging noises over a second round of stimulus checks and looking at a $2 trillion package, which McConnell might have no option but to get behind.
- Second stimulus check: when will I know what the payment date is?
- Stimulus check: how does the government create stimulus payments
- What affects the approval of a second stimulus check bill?
- What is the "Digital Dollar" option being discussed by Congress?
- Stimulus check: will there be a second round of payments in June?
- What is known so far about the second payment of $1,200?
- $4,000 stimulus credit proposed in US: how would it work?
See also:
- Second stimulus check: when will I know what the payment date is?
- Stimulus check: how does the government create stimulus payments
- What affects the approval of a second stimulus check bill?
- What is the "Digital Dollar" option being discussed by Congress?
- Stimulus check: will there be a second round of payments in June?
- What is known so far about the second payment of $1,200?
- $4,000 stimulus credit proposed in US: how would it work?
Senate Republicans may have turned their backs straight off the bat on the HEROES Act, but United States Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin was far more open to the idea of a second round of stimulus checks, even if that will not be within the framwork of the Democrats' legislative offering. Mnuchin has gone so far as to say that a second round of stimulus checks is something the Trump administration is "seriously" contemplating.
"I think we're going to seriously look at whether we want to do more direct money to stimulate the economy," Mnuchin told a hearing by the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship on Wednesday. "I definitely think we are going to need another bipartisan legislation to put more money into the economy."
Live coverage of the coronavirus pandemic
At the time of writing, there had been 2,114,026 coronavirus cases in the United States, with to 116,127 deaths, according to figures compiled by Johns Hopkins University. You can stay up-to-date with the latest Covid-19 developments and numbers as they emerge in America with our live, US-focused coverage.