More than 2 million Californians have fallen into a “stimulus gap,” in which they are entitled to money from federal COVID-19 relief programs but haven’t yet received it. And they may be in danger of never collecting the money, according to a new report from the California Policy Lab.
Since April 2020, three payments totaling up to $3,200 per person have been sent to qualifying Americans. Of the 2.2 million Californians in the so-called stimulus gap, 1.4 million may have missed out on all three rounds of payments. Those who filed their state taxes in 2018 but not 2019, an estimated 424,000 Californians, are at risk of not receiving their second and third payments. And with the most recent relief package, an estimated 360,000 dependents may also be missing out.
The California Policy Lab at UC Berkeley estimates that $5.7 billion in stimulus money could go unclaimed.
The Internal Revenue Service has been using information from 2019 tax returns to distribute stimulus payments.
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