Fourth stimulus check: What are Biden's economic proposals according to the unemployment report?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the April jobs report and it sounded alarms of a slowing economic recovery. With the country eager to return to normalcy, the Dow Jones had expected that over more than one million jobs would be added. In the end, that number was only 266,000.

The April jobs numbers leave the national unemployment rate of 6.1% unchanged and have many policymakers and economists concerned that the economic recovery could last much longer than expected. The report highlights that increases in hiring in the hospitality sector offset losses “employment declines in temporary help services and in couriers and messengers.” Across age, racial, and gender demographics, no groups saw significant decreases in unemployment.

Additionally, the number of people who have lost their jobs permanently increased, showing that the need for unemployment benefit extensions may need to be taken up again by Congress if the numbers do not improve in the Spring and early Summer.

How did Biden respond to the news? Does he support a fourth stimulus check?

Before the BLS report was released, President Biden’s Press Secretary, Jen Psaki, stated that the administration was not opposed to the idea of a fourth stimulus check. In her remarks, Psaki reminded the press that the decision lies with Congress and that caution is needed as direct payments “aren’t free.”

The President took an optimistic tone on Friday after the report saying that the American Rescue Plan aims to help the economy over the next sixty years and that although many would like to see a quicker recovery, “the climb is steep, and we still have a long way to go."

The President’s comments may mean that he’s not willing to support a fourth stimulus just yet, and would like to see more data on the economic recovery before he takes a stand on the matter publicly.

Republicans criticized the Presidnet for being incentive and not taking responsibility for the lackluster numbers. This criticism was refuted by Congressional Democrats, who say that if the Republicans want to support the economic recovery, they could work more collaboratively to pass the two remaining bills that form part of the President’s Build Back Better economic agenda. The two legislative proposals put forward by the Biden administration are the American Jobs Plan and the American Families Plan.

The American Jobs Plan is a two-trillion dollar investment in the nation’s infrastructure, while the plan focused on families, would provide various types of support to low and middle-class households in the US by increasing access to higher education, lowering the costs of child care, and would extending the enhanced child tax credit passed as a part of the American Rescue Plan through 2025.


While neither of these proposals includes the fourth round of stimulus payments, support for more direct payments is growing. Since the passage of the American Rescue Plan in March, which did include a third payment of $1,400, more than seventy Democrats in the House and Senate have called on the President to include more payments.

How many people have received their third stimulus check?

The American Rescue Plan allocated a little over four hundred billion dollars for a third stimulus check, of which around $386 billion has been distributed. If you are still waiting for your payment, you may need to submit your 2020 tax return so the IRS can calculate how much money you are owed.