Another wave of $1,400 stimulus payments rolling out this week — and this time, many are coming as paper checks or pre-paid debit cards.
The approximately 37 million economic impact payments in the new batch consist of 17 million direct-deposit payments, almost 15 million paper checks and around 5 million pre-paid debit cards, according to a statement from the Treasury Department, Internal Revenue Service and Bureau of the Fiscal Service.
The second batch follows the initial distribution of approximately 90 million direct payments last week. Most of those payments were carried out via direct deposits, but it also included about 150,000 paper checks.
This brings the overall count on third-round payments to 127 million so far, worth $325 billion, the Treasury Department said.
For payments coming via direct deposit in this second batch, Wednesday, March 24, marks the official payment date. Before that point, a payment might appear in a bank account as pending or provisional, the IRS noted. The processing on this wave of payments began Friday, the agency said.
IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig said “we urge people to carefully watch their mail for a check or debit card in the coming weeks.”
If anyone gets their tax refund with a paper check, the IRS noted “this paper check will look similar, but will be labeled as an ‘Economic Impact Payment.’”
When the IRS began sending out pre-paid debit cards for the initial, $1,200 round of payments last year, some people accidently threw them out thinking they were junk mail.
As a heads-up, Monday’s announcement said, “the [economic impact payment] card will come in a white envelope prominently displaying the seal of the U.S. Department of the Treasury.”
The IRS says it plans to churn out the remaining stimulus payments on a weekly basis.
The $1,400 stimulus checks that have hit bank accounts are already making an impact. Investors last week pumped a record $56.8 billion into U.S. stock market mutual funds. The previous week, they poured in $16.83 billion, according to BofA Global Research.
This story was updated on Wednesday, March 24.
