Stimulus Checks and Covid

Written by: Bryce Denzien  

Stimulus Checks and Covid

Through the pandemic, there have been many families struggling with money due to many jobs being let go and also a large raise in prices across the board due to inflation in the economy.

Stimulus checks, while seemingly a good idea, were proven to be unsuccessful. According to CBS, the amount of money needed for stimulus checks was 1.9 trillion dollars from the government. On top of that there were many unemployment benefits to support those who were intaking the stimulus checks. When given something free consistently over time people don’t become reliant on themselves, but rather on the free money from the government. On top of that, the United States economy went down 3.5% amidst Covid-19 lowering the GDP of the country. With both people becoming unreliant on themselves and rather the government and the overall GDP dropping, there were loads of cyclical unemployment and a large raise of discouraged workers of nearly 680,000 total. Some peoples low-wage jobs, which were very vulnerable during the pandemic were cut off which represents that cyclical unemployment, but the unfortunate piece is due to stimulus checks the will to work was cut down and down, because it was free money. If people used the money of stimulus checks as the government intended there would be no issues. The problem is people were using the money on things they wanted. My grandpa owns some apartments in West Allis, and rather than people paying him rent he saw boxes upon boxes of TV’s and things unneeded especially when money was tight to begin with.

The solution that should’ve been put into place was stimulus checks of lesser amounts to allow people to still have the same desire to work and succeed at a job. On top of that, with the lesser amount of money, setting limitations where the people intaking the checks can spend it; furthermore, teaching people how to use their money wisely, but more importantly having structure so the money isn’t wasted. Overall, stimulus checks had many flaws causing unemployment and a large raise in discouraged workers.