Here's What You Need to Remember: The stimulus checks from the American Rescue Plan are continuing to roll out. The latest round, the ninth, were sent out this week, and consisted of 960,000 payments, totaling over $1.8 billion.

Remember that change.org petition, demanding recurring $2,000 checks for all Americans until the pandemic is over?

Initiated by a Colorado restaurant owner named Stephanie Bonin, the petition was launched in 2019, and called for $2,000 checks for every American every month until the pandemic is over. The petition hit 2 million signatures earlier this spring.

“I’m calling on Congress to support families with a $2,000 payment for adults and a $1,000 payment for kids immediately, and continuing regular checks for the duration of the crisis,” the petition said.

As of mid-May, the petition was closing in on 2.2 million signatures.

“Our country is still deeply struggling. The recovery hasn’t reached many Americans – the true unemployment rate for low-wage workers is estimated at over 20% and many people face large debts from last year for things like utilities, rent and child care,” an updated statement on the website says. “These are all reasons that checks need to be targeted to people who are still struggling and that Congress needs to learn from this past year.”

The petition notwithstanding, it’s unlikely that Congress this year will pass even one more stimulus check, much less recurring ones every month. While a group of 70 Democratic lawmakers called for additional checks earlier this spring, it doesn’t appear that there’s enough support in Congress or the Biden Administration for such checks.

The White House Press Secretary, Jen Psaki, was asked about the possibility of more checks in a press briefing earlier this month, and appeared to poor cold water on the idea.

“We’ll see what members of Congress propose, but those are not free,” Psaki said.

Instead, the Administration is pushing a pair of new legislative packages, the American Families Plan and American Jobs Plan which, among other things, will allocate money to infrastructure, and will also extend the expanded child tax credit to 2025.

“If passed, the families of tens of millions of children will continue to get regular payments,” Psaki said in the same press briefing. “Obviously, we’re continuing to evaluate what their needs are—to continue to get the pandemic under control, put people back to work, but we think that’s a proposal with a long-term benefit.”

Meanwhile, the stimulus checks from the American Rescue Plan are continuing to roll out. The latest round, the ninth, were sent out this week, and consisted of 960,000 payments, totaling over $1.8 billion. Of those, 500,000 went to “eligible individuals for whom the IRS previously did not have information to issue an Economic Impact Payment but who recently filed a tax return,” while an additional  460,000 went out as “plus-up payments.”

Stephen Silver, a technology writer for The National Interest, is a journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philly Voice, Philadelphia Weekly, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Living Life Fearless, Backstage magazine, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver. This article first appeared earlier this year.

Image: Reuters.