Here's What You Need to Remember: Notable lawmakers calling for monthly stimulus payments include Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, and Rep. Ilhan Omar.

For the past couple of months, under President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, more than one hundred sixty million coronavirus stimulus checks have been sent out to assist Americans who have been financially hurt due to the ongoing pandemic.

But according to one particular Change.org petition, the third round of stimulus checks should only be the beginning of such payments and that they should be disbursed on a monthly basis until the pandemic ends.

And it appears to be enjoying overwhelming support. In fact, nearly 2.2 million people already have signed the petition—which was started by Colorado restaurant owner Stephanie Bonin—that calls for $2,000 recurring monthly stimulus checks. The goal is to ultimately hit three million signatures.

“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 stated.

“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 percent and many people face large debts from last year for things like utilities, rent and child care. 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,” it added.

Congress, to date, has approved the delivery of three direct cash payments—a $1,200 check in the spring of 2020, $600 in December, and the current $1,400 payments under the American Rescue Plan.

Bonin, though, used the petition to criticize the amount of time it has taken Washington lawmakers to come to an agreement on the stimulus checks.  

“Another single check won’t solve our problems—people are just too far behind,” she wrote.

“Like we’ve been saying from the beginning of this pandemic, people need to know when the next check is coming. And the best thing our government can do right now is send emergency money to the people on a monthly basis,” she added.

Notable lawmakers calling for monthly stimulus payments include Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, and Rep. Ilhan Omar.

“I always think that we ought not overthink getting people out of poverty. It’s vitally important. It helps put food on the table. It helps stave off the prospect of losing your housing,” Watson Coleman recently told NJ.com.

“I think there certainly can be a case made for it. It gave people some breathing room and it gave people a sense of some stability, something that they could count on. This has been a very frightening period for people. They lost jobs or lost the hours. Women had to leave the workforce to take care of children. This has been devastating so we need to recognize what this means for struggling families,” she added.

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Minneapolis-based Science and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek, and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn. This article first appeared earlier this year.

Image: Reuters.