Could stimulus checks arrive before Christmas?

As the holidays approach, almost 40% of Americans are planning on spending less than they did last year.

Undoubtedly, a lot of these people are spending less money because of the financial struggles that have came about from the pandemic.

With all of the lockdowns and restrictions that have gone into place many people have been forced to cut down their hours while others have been without work.

It seems that if more stimulus checks could come out prior to the holidays, many Americans might be more willing to spend more money.

In fact, a Franklin Templeton-Gallup poll revealed that only 30% of Americans would spend less if they were to receive another stimulus payment.

The problem is the timing is already behind schedule for the holidays.

Newsweek reported that for Americans to start receiving payments by December 25, Trump will have to sign off on the stimulus package by December 14.

But as we all know, many do their holiday shopping right now or in very early December.

So we have already passed that milestone that would be needed to get funds out for most of the holiday shoppers.

Receiving a check a couple of days before Christmas would be nice but I’m not sure that that would actually do much to boost holiday shopping since it is just too close to Christmas.

Plus, there is a another big issue on the horizon coming December 11.

That is the deadline that lawmakers must act by in order to approve the next spending package to keep the government operating.

And unfortunately, unlike last time when we heard guarantees that no shut down would happen, it is not so clear cut this time.

According to the Washington Post, “White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows said Wednesday that he ‘can’t guarantee’ lawmakers will be able to reach a deal to avert a mid-December shutdown of the federal government.”

This is in direct contrast to when lawmakers guaranteed this would not happen a couple of months ago.

So that is not super encouraging.

With a looming threat of a government shut down, the presidential election that is still being contested, and the possibility of a shift in the Senate come January 5, I really don’t see any possibility for checks getting out before the holidays.

And like I said, even if they did arrive before Christmas it would likely only be a couple of days before which is a minimal benefit for holiday shopping.

Hopefully, we don’t see a government shut down considering that we are in the middle of a pandemic but this will be something to closely monitor in the next couple of weeks.

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