As part of the eighth batch of Economic Impact Payments following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the IRS announced on Wednesday that it had distributed more than 1.1 million additional checks. However, these payments, altogether worth around $2 billion, were only sent to households that did not previously receive a stimulus check from March.

In this sense, the most recent round of payments were not new; they were simply an extension of the March round of stimulus checks, targeted towards those missed in the initial stages due to a lack of data. The March stimulus package has already reached over 180 million Americans and paid out roughly $380 billion in direct cash relief.

The new batch of checks also included the new “plus-up” payments, or smaller stimulus checks to people who had already received the March payments but also qualified for additional payments based on their recently processed 2020 tax returns.

The IRS has a massive backlog in tax returns to process, a problem made worse by its persistent staffing shortages. Despite this, the federal agency is already nearly complete with the distribution of the checks that were originally passed in March. However, the IRS has indicated that the supplemental “plus-up” payments could continue to be sent out for much longer.

Biden has also made clear his intention to strengthen the IRS. Between 2010 and 2020, the agency lost more than 30,000 employees, dramatically decreasing its ability to conduct audits and expose tax cheaters; audits dropped by more than 70% from 2012 to 2020. Biden’s proposal includes adding $80 billion to the IRS budget over the next ten years, increasing its ability to function and decreasing its backlog. 

The IRS has said that it will continue to issue stimulus payments every week. Helpfully, they have also indicated that they will go out of their way to ensure that all Americans get the payments that they are entitled to, rather than relying on them to ensure they are paid properly.

For this reason, there are a number of helpful tools in the IRS’ website. The agency provides an overview of the nature of each check, the benefits that it covers, and the approximate payment time. Additionally, if you are expecting a check and it does not arrive, you can use the “Get My Payment” tool on the IRS’ website to view the status of your payment.

Trevor Filseth is a news reporter and writer for the National Interest.