After America recovered from the lockdowns of the pandemic back in 2021 through a few stimulus check payments, the economy currently has again ceded back towards crossroads. Quite a few massive stimulus packages were announced by Congress back in 2020 and 2021- ones that helped in keeping the country out of a deep recession, or even a depression.
However, it must be understood that the influx of capital to individuals and businesses has also helped prop up the rate of inflation. Now, the policymakers face a dilemma about whether the additional money that is sent to the Americans will actually drive the rate of inflation higher- or will it allow them to deal better with the rise in prices.
The Stimulus Check Payment- Would It Alleviate Inflation?
While the stimulus check package amount can be debated, there can be no doubt that the sum of $5 trillion that was released into the American economy during the pandemic had a major effect on the rise in inflation. According to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, the stimulus payments seem to have quite a quantifiable effect of adding around 3% to the rate of inflation in the country by the end of 2021.
Since then, the prices have only climbed higher. This also resulted in bank balances throughout the country soaring pretty high as the stimulus payments were distributed- and they are still at a notch higher than their levels before the pandemic, as mentioned by both The Washington Post as well as JPMorgan Chase Institute.
One of the most efficient arguments about putting in additional federal stimulus check payments comes from actual data that was recorded by the US Department of Health and Human Services, which discovered the action of the government during the peak of the pandemic kept around 11 million Americans out of poverty.
