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Comment by macinjosh | Hacker News Reader

This makes no sense. Why would we give money to every American instead of just those that really need help? If you aren’t living paycheck to paycheck just to cover necessities you should have savings to fallback on. We should be giving money and help only to people who need it. Not people who have over extended themselves with credit card or student loan debt and no savings. People with means could use a lesson in personal responsibility.

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Because means testing requires a massive, and in this case ad hoc, bureaucracy established to evaluate who should get money. Good luck establishing that. Mailing out checks is actually cheaper and technically feasible, in comparison.

Additionally, not everyone in debt got there by way of lack of personal responsibility. One ambulance ride and ER would send many minimum wage earners into debt, even if they were responsible with their earnings.

I think the IRS is much better set up for this than state run welfare programs. Send a check out to everyone now but collect $950 more in taxes next year from only folks that made more than $XX,XXX amount of money in 2020. Also you could make it so that uncashed checks would be cancelled by next year and you get a $50 extra refund.

Means-testing it isn't necessarily that difficult. When Australia implemented the same idea during the GFC, it was paid out on a scale up to ~$130k based on the previous year's income tax report. Whilst not perfect, I'd be willing to bet good money that it correlates pretty decently well across financial years.

It was also distributed via direct electronic funds transfer in the most case (as that's how the vast majority opt to receive a tax return), so it was pretty frictionless here because all of that infromation was readily on hand. That may not apply in the US, I don't know.

I agree, the people I had in mind are those who make high 5 to low 6 figures but have extensive credit card debt for things like vacations, unnecessary purchases, or expensive cars. (I personally have been guilty of this in the past)

It’s not about helping those in need. It’s about putting money in hands that will actually spend it.

A solution to recessions is increasing Aggregate Demand. People spending money does just that.

How are people going to spend this extra money in their local economy if they are isolated in their home? Sounds like a handout for Amazon really.

One simple reason is that there is no time to means test the solution.

It could take months if not years to do income and asset verification for every american and determine who would qualify

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