Fourth Stimulus Check Update: Congress Urged To Not ‘Ghost’ America On Direct Payments

It continues to seem less and less likely that Americans will ever see another stimulus check, but that hasn’t stopped the chorus of calls to try and convince representatives to send more money to the people. In fact, a popular petition for it not only continues to grow but has also shifted focus to make some form of aid permanent.

The petition on Change.org, which has so far grown to more than 2.9 million signatures, had previously called on Congress to come up with a form of stabilizing payments to help Americans if a certain economic threshold—similar to the economic crash due to the COVID-19 Pandemic—was met. Those payments were asked to be ones of $2000 each month until the economy recovered. Now, the petition has shifted focus to the expanded Child Tax Credits, which have been threatened to be cut or drastically reduced from President Biden’s Build Back Better Plan in an effort to appease Moderate Democrats like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W. Va.).

The petition now asks Congress not to “Ghost” the families of America, with the ghost focus due to the recent Halloween holiday. However, the organizer who started the petition, Stephanie Bonin, asked supporters to urge Congress not to let the Tax Credits be cut because of how helpful they have been to Americans.

“Let’s spread the word that the scariest thing is Congress ghosting America by taking away the checks being sent directly to our families, the expanded Child Care Tax Credits,” she wrote. “Take a second to spread this word via Twitter: #DontGhostAmerica- fight for the ongoing expanded child checks to be permanent and then...pass it!”

The Child Tax Credits, which are currently running through December and offer a monthly payment of $300 per child under the age of six and $250 per child for those aged 6-17, were initially supposed to run through 2025 as part of the initial package. However, after opposition from Moderate Democrats to the $3 Trillion price tag, several programs were cut or altered in the new bill which is valued at $1.75 Trillion. Among them was the Child Tax Credit, which was shortened to just a one-year extension through 2022 for now.

The petition changing focus isn’t the first time a call has gone out to make the Child Tax Credits permanent. Shortly after the first payment went into bank accounts in July, calls went out to try and extend the credits to be permanent, due to the help they provide. Census Data from the Senate Joint Economic Committee earlier this year also found that with the checks, food insecurity in households that received the payments dropped to 8.4% from 11%.

While a further expanded Child Tax Credit is yet to be discussed, and stimulus payments are not on the table currently, some representatives have been making efforts to make a form of them a reality. Following growing support for the original petition, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), introduced a SUPPORT Act in Congress, which, if passed, would start distributing $1,200 checks to Americans—but it won’t have nationwide significance until 2028.