How Are Some Americans Spending Their 3rd Stimulus Checks?

In case you haven’t noticed, after over 1-year of the first known cases of COVID-19 hitting the U.S.A. and causing a chain reaction of businesses, schools, churches, and other in-person facilities having to close down, there have only been three stimulus checks given out to some Americans.

Yeah, only 3…in 12 months! Now, I don’t want to get into politics but it seems kind of odd that other similarly rich countries such as the United Kingdom, Canada, and the Netherlands have been giving their citizens monthly payments this entire time (80% of workers salaries, $2,000 per month, and 90% of workers salaries respectively). A lot of people have had their job industries crumble, have faced a layoff, have had family members get sick, or have had to drop out of the workforce entirely due to a lack of being able to afford childcare (which, is hitting women workers the hardest, sadly). The most recent stimulus payment was $1,400 for each individual taxpayer and each dependant. Individual Americans that made up to $75,000 and married couples who made up to $150,000 qualified.

I came across an article by CNBC titled ‘Catching up on rent, splurging on a vacation: How 3 Americans are spending their stimulus checks’ and wanted to see how some Americans are using their stimulus check and what this says about the financial situation most people are in right now—one year later.

Let’s take a look together!

Person #1

The first person is a mother of two who has been out of work since March 2020. She describes being able to find new employment extraordinarily hard due to having to assist her 11-year old daughter with homeschooling. This is something that millions of Americans are currently dealing with. It’s hard for a two-adult household to juggle homeschooling with work and house chores, but even more difficult for single parents. She says that she will be using her stimulus check to help pay overdue bills and to make it “stretch” as long as possible.

I feel that her decision is a good one, especially if it’s to pay for necessities such as water and electricity which are needed and her daughter can’t be homeschooled without it. Internet has also become a bit of a necessity now in the world that we live in.

Person #2

The second person is a father who has sadly lost two jobs over the course of the pandemic. Ouch. He and his spouse used the first two stimulus checks to pay necessities such as rent and food which makes complete sense. You need to have a place to live and food to eat for your basic survival. They plan to spend their latest stimulus check of $4,200 that he, his spouse, and his child received to help pay for surgery for a ‘degenerative eye disease’.

Although he admits that the stimulus payments have been “benefited my family greatly”, he still worries about the “government taking on so much debt so quickly”. Out of the three people interviewed, he is the only one to mention concern about the government giving payments to it’s citizens during a global pandemic.

Person #3

Not everyone has been as affected by job loss during the current pandemic. Some people didn’t lose their income, such as person number three. She is comfortable and is taking the opportunity to save the money to go somewhere else other than to pay bills or help pay for a much-needed surgery. She’s using her money to visit her daughter and she sees the trip as “something extra for everything we’ve lost in this awful year.”

In conclusion..

I’m glad that they interviewed three people in different places in their life. Most people aren’t spending their stimulus check on anything “frivolous”. It’s most going towards rent, food, utilities, or a trip to see family which is important. Noone benefits from being locked up in their home alone for one year. I honestly identify most with the third person that CNBC interviewed. I have been lucky enough to not lose my job over this past year. My partner and I also don’t have any children that are attending school remotely. We are very lucky that our income has actually grown. We used our stimulus checks to go towards savings that will help pay off taxes that we owe.

What did you think of the article and how the three people interviewed used their stimulus checks?