As Congress debates issuing a third round of federal “stimulus checks” to millions of Americans, economists are trying to assess just how effective such payments are in helping nurse the economy through the coronavirus pandemic. The results have been mixed, new research finds.
While helping keep some families afloat, households earning more than $78,000 have largely socked away the $600 check the U.S. started sending out in December, according to a study from the Opportunity Insights Economic Tracker, a nonprofit research group led by Harvard economics professor Raj Chetty. By contrast, families below that income tend to quickly spend the money.
Perhaps not surprisingly, such findings suggest that lower-income households need the stimulus money to pay for bills and other necessities, while higher-income households generally do not. More revealingly, the analysis highlights…
