Here's What You Need to Remember: “Evidence from the last year shows stimulus checks to be the fastest and most impactful investments helping Americans get through this crisis, lifting more people out of poverty than any other single policy,” the report noted.

For millions of struggling Americans, the three coronavirus stimulus checks—$1,200 in the spring of 2020, $600 in December, and the current $1,400 payments under President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan—sent out over the past year have enabled them to pay for basic everyday needs from food and utilities to gas and rent.

But as the last remaining payments from the third round of stimulus head out to eligible families, there indeed is a sense of uncertainty for many of those who are still having trouble making ends meet. These Americans have voiced their support for a fourth or even a fifth round of stimulus, but it appears that the White House won’t be taking any necessary action to fast-track those in the coming days or weeks.

However, that is not to say that future stimulus checks are dead. In fact, Biden and White House officials still haven’t directly said no to such potential payments.

“(Biden) is happy to hear from a range of ideas on what would be most effective and what’s most important to the economy moving forward,” Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters late last week.

“But he’s also proposed what he thinks is going to be the most effective for the short-term for putting people back to work, to getting through this pivotal period of time and also to making us more competitive in the long-term,” she added.

Even early last month, Psaki didn’t necessarily say that future checks were off the table. “We’ll see what members of Congress propose, but those are not free,” she said.

Despite the inaction by Biden and Congress, it appears to be getting tougher to ignore what stimulus checks have meant to the overall recovery of the U.S. economy.

Recently, a new University of Michigan study that analyzed Census Bureau data revealed that the millions of stimulus checks sent out over the past year have helped many Americans avoid financial ruin. The analysis showed that household food shortages declined by 42 percent and financial instability dropped by 43 percent. Moreover, frequent bouts of anxiety and depression fell by more than 20 percent.

“Our analyses thus far have yielded a fairly simple story: throughout the crisis, the level of hardship faced by U.S. households can be directly linked to the federal government’s response,” the study’s authors wrote, adding that households with incomes of less than $25,000 benefitted the most from the direct payments.

In a separate report released by the Economic Security Project, the data suggested that more rounds of stimulus payments could lift twelve million Americans out of poverty.

“Evidence from the last year shows stimulus checks to be the fastest and most impactful investments helping Americans get through this crisis, lifting more people out of poverty than any other single policy,” the report noted.

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Minneapolis-based Science and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek, and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn. This article first appeared earlier this year.

Image: Reuters.