{"id":11249,"date":"2020-12-30T12:09:27","date_gmt":"2020-12-30T17:09:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/?p=11249"},"modified":"2021-03-08T10:29:21","modified_gmt":"2021-03-08T15:29:21","slug":"stimulus-round-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2020\/12\/30\/stimulus-round-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Stimulus, round 2: Incarcerated people will be eligible for new round of payments"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"sidebarwrapper  aside-expanded\" style=\"width:100%; border-top: 2px; @media (min-width: 640px) { width: 640px;}\">\n<h2 class=\"center\" style=\"margin-top:15px\">For readers with questions<\/h2>\n<p>Details are still coming out about how this new round of stimulus payments will be sent to incarcerated people. As we learn more, we&#8217;ll update this article, but <b>we can&#8217;t answer individual questions<\/b> to help readers get their payments. In the meantime, we offer a few suggestions:<\/p>\n<ul class=\"list\">\n<li>People in prison who did not receive the stimulus payment (first or second) may be able to <b>claim the payments<\/b> by filling out a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/pub\/irs-pdf\/f1040.pdf\">1040 tax form<\/a> and mailing it to the IRS. Some prisons are making the form available upon request.<\/li>\n<li>The IRS&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/coronavirus\/get-my-payment-frequently-asked-questions\">Get My Payment tool and FAQ,<\/a> as well as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/newsroom\/treasury-and-irs-begin-delivering-second-round-of-economic-impact-payments-to-millions-of-americans\">IRS&#8217;s detailed press release<\/a> about the new round of payments, might be helpful.<\/li>\n<li>The National Consumer Law Center has published a <a href=\"https:\/\/drive.google.com\/file\/d\/1dlpo_Jlb8K-2uAuJZGXYToaYy81EI-50\/view?eType=EmailBlastContent&#038;eId=f0db01f0-b991-4503-b91d-fa58dfd775d4\">helpful FAQ.<\/a><\/li>\n<li>The law firm Lieff Cabraser Heimann &#038; Bernstein, which brought the successful California lawsuit about incarcerated people qualifying for stimulus checks, has a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lieffcabraser.com\/cares-act-relief\/\">webpage with useful information<\/a> that may be updated soon. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p>In the wake of the recently passed stimulus bill, many Americans are complaining about the paltry direct payments of $600. Without detracting from Congress&#8217;s failure to support the millions of people who need help, it is worth pausing to acknowledge one unexpected victory in the bill: It contains no prohibition on stimulus payments for incarcerated people.<sup id=\"fnref:1\"><a href=\"#fn:1\">1<\/a><\/sup>  <\/p>\n<p>The previous stimulus bill, passed in March, took some people by surprise by not making incarcerated people ineligible for direct cash payments. The IRS made an ill-advised (not to mention unauthorized) attempt to exclude incarcerated people, but this policy was slapped down by the federal courts. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2020\/05\/18\/checks\/\">As we wrote previously<\/a>, because Congress did not exclude people in prison or jail, the IRS had no choice but to issue the payments to incarcerated people who otherwise qualified. Others who made this same argument <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2020\/10\/05\/checks-update\/\">ultimately prevailed in court<\/a> and incarcerated people began to receive stimulus checks. <\/p>\n<p>In July, when Congress first started to consider a subsequent round of stimulus, the Senate Finance Committee proposed legislative language that would exclude incarcerated people from receiving funds (both going forward and retroactively). The fact that no such language appears in the bill passed in December suggests that <b>this issue was probably the subject of actual negotiation.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a good thing that Congress stuck to the policy of including incarcerated people in the pool of eligible recipients. Even before the pandemic, day-to-day life in prison and jail was getting expensive, with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/reports\/commissary.html\">commissary charges<\/a> for basic food and hygiene items, and increasingly common pay-to-play <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2019\/03\/07\/free-tablets\/\">e-book and music programs.<\/a> But the COVID-19 crisis has brought communications costs (phone, video, and electronic messaging) into sharp contrast. In the many facilities that have suspended in-person visits, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/2020\/09\/11\/free-calls\/\">phone and video are now essential services<\/a> (which come with a price tag). When incarcerated people lack the money needed to pay for basic health and communications items, the financial burden typically falls on their loved ones on the outside who may have to sacrifice basic needs to support family members in prison.<\/p>\n<p><b>The second round of stimulus payments will help people pay for basic necessities in prison or jail,<\/b> and perhaps begin saving to cover expenses upon release from custody. At the end of an otherwise disappointing session of Congress, the inclusion of incarcerated people in the stimulus program is a small ray of hope.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class=\"footnotes\">\n<h2>Footnotes<\/h2>\n<ol>\n<li class=\"footnote\" id=\"fn:1\">Another prison-related victory, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2020\/12\/21\/us\/politics\/stimulus-law-education.html\">restoration of Pell grants for people in prison<\/a>, is also worth noting, although that&#8217;s a topic for a different blog post.\n<p> <a href=\"#fnref:1\" title=\"return to article\"> &#160;&#8617;<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At the end of an otherwise disappointing session of Congress, the inclusion of incarcerated people in the stimulus program is a small ray of hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,1],"tags":[63],"coauthors":[39],"class_list":["post-11249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-briefings","category-uncategorized","tag-poverty"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11249"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11589,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11249\/revisions\/11589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11249"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prisonpolicy.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=11249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}