NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — Despite being incarcerated, New York State prisoners received stimulus check funds amounting to $34.3 million in aid, the New York Post reported.
The Department of Correction and Community Supervision told the Post that a total of 26,232 stimulus checks were received by incarcerated people in New York state prisons through September, with some receiving two stimulus checks.
Fox News reported that under the Biden Administration’s American Rescue Plan, $783.5 million dollars were distributed via stimulus checks to incarcerated people across the country. The actual amount of stimulus payments given out to incarcerated individuals is likely higher as the figure doesn’t account for emergency relief payments issued by the Trump Administration.
To be eligible for the stimulus funds, individuals had to be U.S. citizens or permanent residents and their income must not have exceeded $75,000. Nowhere in the criteria were incarcerated people explicitly excluded from receiving funds yet the Internal Revenue Service found prisoners ineligible and refused to send payments to those behind bars.
A California class action lawsuit brought on behalf of incarcerated people changed that. Judge Phyllis Hamilton issued a ruling stating that the federal government could not deny funds to people based on their incarceration status and ordered the IRS to create a system that would make it easier for incarcerated people to apply for their due payments.
Many Republican lawmakers initially tried to block the measure and openly criticized the government for handing out checks to criminals, which included the likes of Boston Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and former Olympic gymnast doctor Larry Nassar who sexually abused young athletes.
Others argued the checks would be a lifeline to prisoners who worked laborious and dangerous jobs during the pandemic for little pay.
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