While the economy continues to suffer because of the global COVID-19 pandemic and governments are looking for ways to lessen its impact, the US Democrats offer to create a digital dollar to make payments for people who do not use banks.
The offer on Coronavirus Stimulus Bill, presented by congress member Nancy Pelosi on March 23th, is introduced as a way of delivering the economic stimulus payments to American citizens.
The payments targeted to the low and middle-income households would give of $1 200 to every adult and $500 to each child under age 17. The benefits will be generally based on 2019 income, reports Forbes and will be issued to everyone, whose annual income is less than $75 000 and for single parents less than $112 500.
While not every US citizen has a bank account or even an ID document, the use of the digital dollar could speed up the process of transferring them the aid payments from the country’s emergency funds.
According to the Bill, all the bank-members of the Federal Reserve will be authorized to establish digital dollar wallets (or accounts) to help transfer payments.
US Postal Service could help the unbanked citizens or those without an ID to provide a digital dollar account and set ATMs to access the funds, says Forbes.
Massive stimulus package to recovery
The Coronavirus Stimulus Bill, presented by Nancy Pelosi, is one of the current ongoing attempts to stimulate the nation’s economy, which was hit hard by the global pandemic.
An agreement of a massive $2 trillion plan to provide a financial injection to the economy is still on negotiation. While the discussions between the Senate and Congress are ongoing, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is optimistic, that the decision can be made today. “We are hopeful that this could be closed tomorrow”, he told CNN last night.
