“The CARES act payments provide a much-needed boost to families trying to pay rent and put food on the table during
this unprecedented health and economic crisis,” said Sadaf Knight, CEO of the non-partisan Florida Policy Institute.
The IRS, working with the Social Security Administration and the Department of Veterans Affairs, has been automatically delivering these payments to tens of millions of people who regularly file federal income taxes or receive certain federally administered benefits.
But the automatic payment method misses about 12 million people nationally —including people of color, children whose parents are paid low wages, people without secure housing, and others — because they aren’t required to file federal income tax returns due to their low incomes and they do not participate in one of those specified, federally-administered programs.
Governors and other state leaders can play a central role in reaching eligible individuals with low income, roughly 3 in 4 of whom participate in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) or Medicaid, which states and counties administer.
States and localities will also need to reach out to people eligible for payments who may be outside the reach of SNAP and Medicaid.
