There have been three stages of stimulus checks released throughout last year. People are still wondering how they can get those, and if they qualify.
(Adam Spoolstra) “In kind of an effort to stimulate the economy there was different debates on who should receive the stimulus and should you only focus on people that lost their jobs or were financially impacted or is it better to just stimulate the economy and through kind of a widespread payment because the reality is more than 90% of people if you start looking at the rules are receiving some kind of stimulus payment.”
A huge part of determining your stimulus check qualification, depends on your tax returns and more specifically, your income.
(Spoolstra) “One of the big differences with the third stimulus that just passed recently payments went out in March. With the first two in order to receive a payment for a child they had to be a qualifying child that is 16 and under, right? So what you notice really is that if you have a dependent, it doesn’t matter their age you’re able to still receive the $1400 so the big group that was really kind of not represented in the first two payments, but now is, is college students.”
(Spoolstra) “There wasn’t a stimulus payment being received for them for the first two but then with this third one there should be. One of the things to note with the first two is there’s an expectation, there’s a requirement, I should say, only individuals with a Social Security number were receiving this payment and so that has been relaxed with this third stimulus payment as well if you’ve got one member of the family who’s got a Social Security number you still have the ability to receive.”
College students are the largest group who are left wondering why they aren’t receiving payments from last year.
(Spoolstra) “Keep in mind if it’s a college student that’s still a dependent of their parents it’s still going to be the same issue as before in a sense that you have to be 16 or younger for those first two payments, right? If the student was not a dependent in 2020 and they’re filing separate from their parents then they would receive those stimulus payments on their 2020 return.”
Most college students who support themselves have been vocal about the exclusion throughout the first two stimulus checks.
(Ryan Wallace) “With covid hitting that shut down a lot of jobs and job opportunities, for people who would normally be in work during school.”
(Wallace) “If I got a stimulus check I would probably put it directly towards school, most of my money I’m saving goes towards school anyways so if I got a check it could help shorten my loans and help me get school paid off.”
Reporting from The Campus Ledger, this has been Paige Winters.