MUSCODA - Many Americans woke up to their third stimulus checks of $1,400 on March 12. The payments are part of the American Rescue Act legislation signed in by President Joe Biden. 

However, for millions of Americans, this wasn’t the case. 

As of last Thursday, March 25, those collecting Social Security benefits for retirement, disability, or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) had still not received their payments yet. 

According to the U.S. Department of The Treasury, the second batch of individuals who are still waiting should begin seeing their monies over the next few weeks. 

“Like the first batch of payments, the payments announced today (March 24) primarily were sent to eligible taxpayers in 2019 or 2020 returns. People who don’t typically file a return but who successfully used the Non-Filers tool on IRS.gov last year were sent payments in this batch,” the Treasury explained. “In total, this second batch includes approximately 37 million payments, with a total value of nearly $83 billion. As part of that, this batch of payments includes approximately 17 million direct deposit payments, with a total of more than $38 billion. These payments began processing Friday, March 19, and some Americans saw the direct deposit payment as pending or as provisional payments in their accounts before today’s (March 24) official payment date. In addition, this batch of payments includes nearly 15 million paper checks (with a total value of nearly $34 billion and approximately five million prepaid debit cards.”

The Treasury also shared that while most payments are disbursed by direct deposit, roughly about 150,000 checks worth approximately $442 million still go out in the mail. 

“It’s been hard to wait for the money,” Shared one local woman who wished to remain anonymous. “We already live on a shoe string budget and COVID has of course made things more unpredictable than ever. We’ve been really relying on this money showing up. Especially with the energy moratorium ending and bills still needing to be caught up.”