Here's What You Need to Remember: As of May 12, 165 million payments had gone out, at a total value of $388 billion. The Rescue Plan allocated $410 billion for such payments.

As some lawmakers continue to call for additional stimulus checks, one newspaper has done an investigation into how many of the existing checks remain unspent.

The Boston Herald reported Sunday that 1.24 million stimulus checks sent out under the CARES Act, over a year ago, remain unspent, including nearly 28,000 in the newspaper’s home state of Massachusetts. Those figures were obtained by the Herald via a Freedom of Information Act request, and do not apply to the checks from the late 2020 stimulus, or from the American Rescue Plan earlier this year.

The IRS described the 1.24 million figure as “the number of people who either refused to accept, paid back or not cashed the stimulus checks they received from the IRS as a result of the CARES Act that was signed into law on March 27, 2020.”

The IRS did not tell the Herald how many of those checks went to people who are deceased, although there’s been much reporting about the process for what should happen if stimulus checks are sent to dead people.

The newspaper also reported that the states with the most unspent checks are the nation’s most populous. California had the highest number of unspent CARES Act funds, with 123,265, followed by Florida, Texas, New York, and Pennsylvania.

It’s worth pointing that while the 1.24 million figure sounds like a lot, it was a very small fraction of the total amount of money that went out in checks as part of the CARES Act. As of May 2020, 130 million such payments had gone out, including 110 million direct deposit payments and 20 million paper checks, MarketWatch reported at the time.

The Herald noted that both of Massachusetts’ Democratic senators, Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey, as well as Bernie Sanders of neighboring Vermont, are all in favor of continuing stimulus checks.

While some Republican governors in more than 20 states have moved to eliminate the enhanced federal unemployment compensation, Gov. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts has not done so, although he did announce plans to reinstate work-search requirements for those receiving unemployment, as of mid-June. Those enhanced benefits are set to expire in September.

As for the American Rescue Plan, there are indications that the government is nearly done distributing the $1,400 stimulus checks from that plan. Two weeks ago, the IRS distributed less than 1 million checks, and the agency last week did not put out its weekly report stating exactly how many checks had gone out that week. As of May 12, 165 million payments had gone out, at a total value of $388 billion. The Rescue Plan allocated $410 billion for such 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.