Stimulus Checks Coming Soon for Low-Income Workers

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If the IRS has direct deposit information for you, you’ll get your $1,200 stimulus payment in a couple of weeks:

Then, starting the week of May 4, the IRS will begin issuing paper checks to individuals, says the memo obtained by AP Thursday. The paper checks will be issued at a rate of about 5 million per week, which means it could take up to 20 weeks to get all the checks out. That timeline would delay some checks until the week of Aug. 17.

Hmmm. I suppose it’s too much to ask that they at least get the money out to the poorest folks first. Hell, knowing how they usually operate, they’ll probably—

The checks will be issued in reverse order of adjusted gross income, meaning that people with the lowest income will get payments first.

Oh. Well, good job.

I wonder why they’re issuing only 5 million checks per week? Is that literally the limit of the check printers they have? Or what?

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In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

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