A big part of that is that it’s simple, and can be done for most people automatically. What was your AGI in 2018 or 2019? Under the amount? Great, here’s some money. No complicated filing process, no W-2s and bank statements, no slow rollout as forms are distributed and websites put together, no processing by government employees and contractors, just payouts.
Essentially, a whole bunch of money was created and put into the economy at a place where it is likely to be spent (people’s hands). Some people will spend it right away, some people may start spending it in the next few months, and others might have been fine without it.
Giving it to everybody is also fair in another sense. Everybody below a certain (high) income gets it. Doesn’t matter if they were the stereotypical lazy adult living in their parents’ basement, hard working, doing fine, or just getting by.
The government is borrowing this money at a very, very low interest rate. Much below even a low inflation number. So the government pays it back later when we don’t need the money, and spends it now when (hopefully) it can do some good.
I suggest you attend a protest rally. It fact, go attend several of them. The gene pool really needs thinning, and we could do without your incessant whining.
I think that the feds should have given people the option to take it or refuse it. Both of my parents and 2 adult children got a check and all but 1 of them would have refused it had they been given a chance. They don’t need it and didn’t really want it because they realize that it’s just sinking us further into debt.
And worse, it’s not like they’re going out and spending because the things that they might have spent it on aren’t even open.
At some point, this trillion dollar deficit is going to become a problem.
Losing income is not a requirement for getting a stimulus check. There are plenty of people who are still working and who have not lost their jobs. They are all getting stimulus checks (provided they make less than the cutoff, of course). Are you angry about all of these people as well? Or just those on Social Security? Why are you not angry about all the nurses, grocery store workers, military personnel, law enforcement, firemen, and all the other millions who have not lost a paycheck? Why are you just mad about retirees or SSDI recipients?
If I hear one more politician use the phrase “Through NO fault of their own”, when they are justifying giving huge sums of tax dollars to big business, I’m going to throw something through my TV. Because individuals are economically destroyed due to circumstances beyond their control ( NO fault of their own) all the time and the government response generally runs the gamut between cruelty and indifference. Unless it’s a public tragedy, then they get “thoughts and prayers”.
One reason for making the requirements so broad was the need to get money out fast and requiring everyone to either opt in or out would’ve slowed down the process considerably.
If there is anyone out there that would’ve preferred to opt out — well, you can give it back, sort of.
Every dollar paid out for regular social security, as in for those who are retired, is funded by money paid into the system by those people. Social security payments are not a dole, they are a repayment (at a crappy rate of return) for what the government took, by force, out of everyone’s paycheck during the years that they worked. Not only that, large sums have been stolen from the social security fund by the federal government to pay for wars and such, and never paid back (which is the only reason there is any doubt about the ability of the social security system to continue indefinitely).
You are clearly ignorant on this point, as evidently on others. I don’t expect to persuade you, but someone else reading this thread (og only knows why anyone would) probably deserves to know a few facts.
as someone whos lived on SSI from 12 to 35 until dad retired from GM/Delco with more money than the government decided he needed (thanks to some fat UAW contracts in the 70s and 80s) and switched it to coming from most of his retirement because id be getting more from him and SSA than SSI I filed my first ever tax return that said I had no taxable income
I wonder if the op realizes for a lot of people this check is maybe a tiny bit more than an extra check cause all I get is a about 1090 a month and you cant even live in dirt road tin shack Mississippi on that
OK, OP: now let’s hear you give it good and hard with spittle and bile to all those employed GenXers and Millennials and postMillennials plus any dependent minor children, who are **also **getting the stimulus money though they are still making an income.
If the complaint is that at this stage we should only have provided money to those who have major income loss or extraordinary expenses, with individuals and small business at the head of the line, followed next month by those with moderate income loss and expenses, and then only the folowing month for larger businesses, and NEVER for anyone with a secure income or with passive investments – **then why the fuck not make THAT the complaint, but instead launch a rant at Social Security pensioners and “Boomers”? **
Easy solution to that problem. Donate the money to a food bank as I and some others in this thread have done. That’s helping my neighbors who need it.
Keeping the economy afloat as much as possible is a good investment. Certainly better than tax cuts for the rich and for companies who repurchased expensive stock with it only to see the value of the stock plummet. That’s throwing money away.
Guess what stupid. Younger people can keep their retirement money in their accounts during a crash, like I did in 2008. People who are relying on it to live have to eat the loss. No problems, huh?
BTW, mandatory withdrawals start at age 70 1/2 before, I think further out now.
Social security is progressive, so that people like me who maxed out on payments are subsidizing those with lower payments. That’s a good thing. And guess which party is against raising the cap so that the program will be funded better. Guess which party has brought up changes that would kill it from time to time?
If you think SS payments are so munificent, I invite you to not save and expect to live on them. Have fun starving.
Because it gets a bigger reaction. And/or because OP has a mindless irrational hatred of people over a certain age. I’m not allowed to hope that he never has to suffer that indignity himself, so I won’t.
Just in case it wasn’t covered above–and I was kind of shocked by the OP–unemployment insurance is just that: insurance. Employers pay into it, and to get it and continue it, the recipient must jump through some hoops, sometimes those hoops becoming almost a full time job in themselves. It certainly is not some windfall. It’s not even close to that.
Why aren’t you and other millennials more pissed about the massive transfer of wealth from the public to private individuals that’s happened since the 1980s? That anger would make more sense.
I think I like Chessic better when he’s begging for money to feed his kids. I’d like to hold $20 up to his face and watch him flail about trying to convince me he deserves it…