www.cnet.com
$2,000 second stimulus check versus $600: How much could you really get?
What's the largest sum your household could receive with the next direct payment? That depends on what happens in Congress, as President Trump spurns a $600 per person check to support a $2,000 ceiling instead.
Politics
What's the largest sum your household could receive with the next direct payment? That depends on what happens in Congress, as President Trump spurns a $600 per person check to support a $2,000 ceiling instead.
Will the second stimulus check be for $600 or $2,000? That's what America would like to know, as a fog of doubt gathers around the $2.3 trillion bill that combines a round of funding for the government, with $900 billion set aside for economic stimulus programs. At the center of the storm is the $600 upper limit for the direct payment, which President Donald Trumps wants to boost that to $2,000 apiece, a figure over twice what many Republicans have previously rejected because it would drive up the combined cost of the stimulus portion of the package well over $1 trillion, unless it shed other funding along the way.
Yet Trump's insistence immediately grabbed the attention of the Democratic-led House of Representatives, which will vote Monday to approve a $2,000 raise to the second stimulus check. The gambit is a long shot for approval in the final days of 2020 -- and even the first few days of 2021. The enormous increase to a second stimulus check isn't considered likely to clear the Senate.
It also isn't clear if the $600 payment for child dependents would stay the same or if certain rules, like the formula used to calculate your stimulus check total, would shift. (And here's who might not qualify.) But we do know all those details for a $600 maximum check. As we await developments, we'll help you figure out how much money a second stimulus check might bring you overall, comparing the maximum sum households could get with a $600 or $2,000
second stimulus check -- it may not be as simple as you think. This story was updated recently with new details.
$2,000, $600 or nothing? Compare the most money your household could get
If a $2,000 second stimulus check does pass, each household would stand to collect much more money than with the $600 check, that much is clear. But just how much, when you add in child dependents? Couples could expect a ceiling of $4,000, potentially making more households able to qualify for more money for relatively higher earners.
We compared the two side by side, assuming that children would still count for $600 apiece in the household total. This chart represents the maximum you could get, but many would in fact receive partial payments as a result of diminishing returns based on your adjusted gross income, or other eligibility factors.