Haven’t Got A Stimulus Check Yet? Find Out If You Qualify

Thousands of people in Southeast Michigan who are eligible to get a stimulus check might miss out. That’s if they don’t act soon.

“Some of our research indicates about 25 percent of Detroiters don’t have bank accounts.” — Afton Branche, U of M Poverty Solutions.

Anyone individual with a social security number is eligible. That’s if you’re an individual filer making $75,000 a year or less, a head of household filer making $112,500 a year or less, or a married couple filing joint returns making $150,000 or less. You do not need to have claimed income in the past to be eligible.

Low income, no income, and homeless people are least likely to get their check because they’re the least likely to have filed taxes with the IRS in the past two years. People without bank accounts on file with the IRS could also miss out or have their checks delayed until August. 

“Some of our research indicates about 25 percent of Detroiters don’t have bank accounts,” says Afton Branche, strategic project manager at the Detroit Partnership on Economic Mobility at the University of Michigan’s Poverty Solutions. “And these are really the folks that could use the stimulus fund sooner than later.”

Click on the player above to hear about how to make sure people who are eligible for a stimulus check actually get one.

People who are eligible for a stimulus check but who haven’t filed taxes in the last two years can enter their stimulus payment information here.

Poverty Solutions has created an FAQ on the stimulus.

Branche also wants people to know that the stimulus payment will not affect other public benefits people might be getting.

“The stimulus checks are not income, so they’re not going to count against your food stamps, your housing subsidies, your unemployment benefits, anything like that,” she says. “They are processed as a tax credit, so folks shouldn’t be worried about anything happening to their benefits if they get these checks.”