WEALTH IS THE SOLUTION TO A LACK OF WEALTH:

Compared to other pandemic-related government spending measures such as expanded food stamps, enhanced unemployment benefits, and supplemental Social Security income, "the federal stimulus checks have a larger antipoverty impact than any of the other programs," they wrote.

Case in point: food stamps, which come under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, are keeping 7.9 million people out of poverty this year and expanded unemployment benefits, in conjunction with other programs, are keeping 6.7 million people out of poverty, researchers estimated.

Researchers counted the second $600 stimulus check and the third $1,400 check in their estimates because both were income that hit wallets in 2021.

Elaine Waxman, senior fellow at the Urban Institute, was surprised at just how many people avoided poverty because of the direct checks. "The power of cash to reduce poverty is made plain," she said.

That power, she said, came from flexibility. The checks were "available to broadly cover the needs of the household," while other government subsidies are often earmarked for a specific expense, like rent or groceries, she noted.

Overall, the poverty rate is projected to sink to an estimated 7.7% in 2021, which is lower than the 13.9% rate in 2018, when the think tank did the same sort of analysis. In fact, the 7.7% rate is even lower than the 8.7% poverty rate the researchers previously thought would occur this year.

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