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Social Security recipients who don’t usually file tax returns will automatically get $1,200 payments, Treasury says in reversal
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- Title
- The list of who won't get a $1,200 stimulus check is growing - and includes some surprising groups
- Word count
- 1101 words
Add "Are you under sixteen? Congrats, you parents get $500.
Similar experience there for the rest. I've been keeping self employed and small business owning friends and family abreast of the stimulus and what they need to do. When I saw this article I messaged my aunt, who lives close to my grandmother, to update her so that she can check that my grandmother has or will now file taxes.
Edit: this has been partially reversed:
Social Security recipients who don’t usually file tax returns will automatically get $1,200 payments, Treasury says in reversal
From the article:
[...]
I'll play a little devil's advocate here (mostly because I enjoy doing so and the debate it garners):
Devil's advocate response: That still doesn't justify him expecting a check and while there are teenagers that have jobs, they are not the norm.
Personal response: I completely agree, as I once was one of those people being that I had my first actual job (as in not mowing lawns, having a work schedule, boss, etc) at the age of 13 and have cumulatively been unemployed for less than 18 months since that first job. I don't personally believe there should have been means testing on the payment at all.
That depends on how you think about opportunity cost, which can be tricky.
Suppose someone didn't have a job but had an offer with a specific salary, and then the job evaporated. They are now unemployed. Compare with someone who was working for five years, has the same salary, and lost their job. Also unemployed, right? Their losses are quantifiable, and you can even set up the example so they're the same.
You might say that one job is more "real" than the other. For someone who was looking for work, and was well qualified and fully expected to get a job, they might be in the same position, but the cost is hazier.
In every case we are talking about expectations about future income being violated. The income you were hoping for is not real, that was on a different timeline.
The thing is, our financial system is mostly built on expectations. A violation of expectations happened at massive scale and that has huge effects.
DA: You are correct in that our financial system is built on expectations, but those expectations are based on past experiences. That is why the individual that made $100k last year, filed their taxes, and then was laid off because of this is not getting a check. The expectation is that their situation continued. Same with the individual that was never employed, a lack of past experience indicating an income is expected to continue and thus ineligible for the economic impact check.
Suppose they are a college senior, majoring in computer science, with good grades and good interviewing skills? What would you predict based on previous experience?
Predicting that tomorrow will be the same as today is a good default algorithm for forecasting. It can work surprisingly well for predicting the weather, for example. It's a good benchmark and you should compare more sophisticated strategies to it. But it's still a method of forecasting and can be wrong.
There is also a question of how much you want to base the future on the past. If your goal is to avoid perpetuating inequality then we shouldn't look at the past and treat each day as a fresh start. This would be an argument for sending equal checks to everyone.
DA
The same as if they were a college dropout in the same position; how much money have they made recently. Good interview skills aren't quantifiable and opinion has no place in government, only fact. Facts are that only about a quarter of people actually work in their major so there's no guarantee that he'll work a high paying, or any, job in that field. Are there other, better models to use? Absolutely. Are they strategies that are complete insomuch as they can be applied to the absolute greatest number of individuals in the shortest amount of time in order to get the payments out as soon as possible? A resounding no.
The goal of the checks is not to avoid perpetuating inequality, that's not even on the table. The goal is to provide economic relief to those most likely to have been impacted. That being people that have worked in the past two years, are not dependents, and made less than $100k.
Giving everyone the same amount is easier than using their previous income. If you're worried about giving money to people who don't need it, raising taxes slightly for 2020 income would be based on facts that are more relevant than any previous year's income. (This effectively means that for high income people, the stimulus check will be a loan.)
And I don't see why not.
DA
Which was covered in my second point. That the goal is to provide for those most likely to have been impacted. It's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. Don't give it to absolutely everyone and you're criticized for means testing. Give it to everyone and you'll be criticized for giving rich people more money they don't need.
If you can't see why a desperate economic stimulus in light of a pandemic impact not seen in modern times isn't focused on ending inequality across the board, as if it was even possible to address such in current political climate, then I'm not sure there's much I can say that would convince you otherwise.
It's important to achieve the goal of helping people in need. It's not important to ensure that they are in need due to the pandemic, and it slows things down. There are always poor people who desperately need stuff regardless of the pandemic. Helping them as well is a good side effect.
And again, means-testing can be done by adjusting 2020 income taxes. It's not urgent to means-test right away, as the money can be taken back later, using a less rushed and fairer process.
DA
Again, which isn't the purpose of the act that passed. I cooked dinner for my family today, but I could have also cooked dinner for the entire neighborhood. Yet the act of me cooking dinner wasn't for the purpose of feeding the neighborhood.
So do more work on the back end to determine who didn't need it and take it back instead of just using past data to determine who was most likely to not need it at all? So if someone made over $100k in 2020 and they take the stimulus back in taxes in 2021, but subsequently had delayed economic impact and in 2021 are jobless, they are charged extra taxes for something that no longer applies to them and is still using data from the past. How is this a fairer process? Seems like it's just kicking the can down the road for the same result.
We could get into how to reform income tax. But I think I'm tired of this game. Well-played!
And to you!
Have a good one and stay safe.
Can someone fix the title? The Washington Post changed the headline of the story. @deimos
Got it, thanks.