Second Stimulus Check: 1 in 5 Americans Fear Congress Won’t Reach Deal

The hopes that many Americans have had for a second stimulus check are starting to dwindle, as it’s reported that 1 in 5 U.S. residents fear that Congress won’t reach a deal. Newsweek reports this, citing a poll from YouGov/The Economist, wherein 1,500 adults were asked from August 16 to 18 about the new bill negotiations. Of those people, 20% said they thought another package would never be passed by both chambers.

Additionally, 5% of those polled said that they thought a deal would be reached in the next week. The two highest answers each had about 26%, with some saying they thought a deal would be reached within the next month, and the others thinking it would be within the next two months. While it is understandable that many Americans are worried that the new stimulus bill will take a long time to be approved — or never approved — there are actually reasons to believe that it will. Over the past few months, leaders from both the Republican and Democrat parties have said that they want to send more stimulus money directly to citizens, to help with the financial fallout caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The White House is still motivated,” White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany said, according to The New York Times, when asked if President Trump still supports sending out stimulus checks. “The president would love to see the direct payments to Americans; the president would love to see the school funding. There are several items we would like to see happen.”

In fact, some politicians have lobbied for more than what was already given, such as California Sen. — and current Democratic vice presidential candidate — Kamala Harris. “Through the course of this pandemic and crisis, we need to give people $2,000 a month as recurrent payments—people below a certain income level—to help them and sustain them through these months of crisis so at the end of it, they can get back up on their feet instead of falling deep deep deep into the crevices of this crisis,” Harris previously told Forbes. “And, it does not make any sense, to your point, when we have Republicans in Congress who are standing in the way of supporting working people who have recently lost their jobs—[and] have every intention of working—when we can get through this crisis and [they] just need help from their government.”