“I have a lot of bills,” said Carumba, 47. She plans to use a chunk of the $2,200 check she received Wednesday to cover expenses, including on her $10,000 in credit-card debt.
She’s been offered deferrals on her car and credit-card payments, but that means she’ll owe more down the road, she said, and she wants to stay current to maintain a good credit rating so she can access student loans for her children.
Even for people still working, the specter of lost income will linger and potentially affect spending and saving habits well into the future.
Rolando Trevino, an electrician who installs power systems for telecommunications infrastructure in San Antonio, Texas, has an “essential” job and makes about $65,000 a year. It has not been lost on him that some of his colleagues have been furloughed.
Hoard the Windfall
Considering his relatively flush position, he was surprised when his $1,200 stimulus check showed up in his bank account. He thought briefly about paying off his $1,000 Visa card balance. Then he decided to hoard the windfall as a cushion against further deterioration in economic conditions.
“It’s good to have a little set aside. I mean, if this goes on through the summertime,” he said. “You never know.”
In Boxford, Mass., Amanda Bridge is struggling to figure it all out. Just before the pandemic, she moved the two children she was in the process of adopting to her parents’ farm where she also lives, thinking that what it has to offer -- horses, goats, chickens and a donkey -- would be the ideal family setting.
The stimulus money will fund “food, bills and entertainment” and possibly a kiddie pool as the weather gets warmer, said Bridge, 34, who’s still employed from home in her human-resources job.
Meanwhile, David Klotz, 38, a senior graphic designer for a Houston engineering company, views the $1,200 as a sort of bonus that won’t make a huge difference, even though his annual income just dropped 9% to less than $72,000 when his employer cut salaries.
“I’m going to let it sit in the bank, and I’ll have it if I need it,” Klotz said. “But even if I did need it, it would not be enough to get me by long-term.”
The truth is that for most Americans, he said, “it’s chump change in the long run.”