Fourth Stimulus Check Update: $2,000/ Month Petition Surpasses 2.8 Million Signature

A petition urging the Biden administration to send $2,000 in monthly stimulus checks has surpassed 2.8 million signatures Sunday.

The petition, which aims to collect three million signatures, has gained support from approximately 175,000 people in the past month amid the surge of the highly contagious Delta variant.

The petition was posted by Denver restaurant owner Stephanie Bonin in 2020. In it, she urges the U.S. Congress to pass a measure that would send out recurring payments of $2,000 to American adults and $1,000 to children through the COVID-19 crisis.

“I’m calling on Congress to support families with a $2,000 payment for adults and a $1,000 payment for kids immediately, and continuing regular checks for the duration of the crisis. Otherwise, laid-off workers, furloughed workers, the self-employed, and workers dealing with reduced hours will struggle to pay their rent or put food on the table,” Bonin wrote on the Change.org petition.

If the petition reaches its goal, it will become one of the platform’s most signed petitions. At its current pace, the petition could hit three million by early September.

Despite calls for a fourth stimulus check, the White House and congressional lawmakers have yet to indicate their plans for another round of payments.

Part of the reason for the lack of stimulus check could be the improving U.S. unemployment rate, which has gone down to 5.4% from 5.9% in July. There are also 943,000 new jobs from employers across the nation.

At the current pace of economic growth, the U.S. economy could expand by up to 6.5% this year, according to estimates from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, as reported by Yahoo Finance.

The White House has also previously indicated that they do not expect to add relief checks to President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan. Instead, officials have focused on other aids, including Child Tax Credit, which gives eligible American families up to $300 a month per child, according to AS News.

The IRS has issued the second round of monthly child tax credit payments to millions of eligible American households on Aug. 13.