More than 1.8 million stimulus checks were disbursed in the last two weeks in the latest batch of payments, according to the Internal Revenue Service, bringing the total number of payments in the third round to 167 million, including add-on payments for underestimated checks that were already sent out.
Approximately $391 billion in stimulus payments have been sent so far, about 87% of the $450 billion earmarked for direct relief, the IRS said in a press release on Wednesday.
More than 900,000 payments were sent to people who previously didn’t have information on file at the IRS but recently filed a tax return.
This batch also included more than 900,000 “plus-up” payments for people who had their third stimulus check calculated based on their 2019 tax return, but are now eligible for a bigger payment. This could be the case for people whose 2020 income was lower than their 2019 income or who had a baby or a dependent added to their 2020 tax return that qualified them for a larger payment.
