Vox Sentences - Who gets a check?

House Democrats rejected pushes to narrow the eligibility pool for individual stimulus checks; dozens of people are missing after a glacier disaster in the Himalayas.

Tonight's Sentences was written by Gabby Birenbaum.

• House Democrats on the Ways and Means Committee have proposed sending $1,400 stimulus checks to individuals making under $75,000 and families earning less than $150,000, pushing back on a bipartisan group that wanted to more narrowly target the checks. [Vox / Jerusalem Demsas]
• The proposal looks more like the previous stimulus bills passed last year than Republican efforts to shrink the eligibility pool. But unlike past bills, individuals earning over $100,000 and families making over $200,000 will be left out entirely. [CNN / Katie Lobosco]
• The House Democrats’ bill includes smaller checks for individuals making between $75,000 and $100,000, and families earning more than $150,000 but less than $200,000. [The New York Times / Emily Cochrane]
• The move comes as tensions were rising among Senate Democrats, between centrists like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), who have leaned toward setting the individual threshold at $50,000, and progressives like Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Ron Wyden (D-OR), who were insistent on including all middle-class families. [The Washington Post / Jeff Stein and Erica Werner]
• If the bill were to successfully advance out of the House, its passage in the Senate would hinge on Democratic moderates, including their most vocal member, Manchin. The senator said he was not opposed to the House Democrats’ proposal, but added he wanted more evidence people earning $75,000 were truly in need. [Politico / Heather Caygle and Sarah Ferris]
• There are a few more key differences between prior stimulus bills and the current proposal: Democrats are exploring allocating payments based on 2020 tax returns rather than 2019 ones, and will include adult dependents. [The Washington Post / Heather Long and Jeff Stein]
• The draft legislation also includes extending the federal unemployment benefit and increasing it from $300 to $400 per week, as well as increasing the child tax credit to be $3,600, delivered in monthly installments. [USA Today / Nicholas Wu]
• Finally, House Democrats also included a gradual $15 minimum wage hike in their bill, despite a new Congressional Budget Office report saying the move would lower poverty levels but cost jobs. Other groups have disagreed with the CBO's finding, but Republicans seized on it as evidence against a wage hike. [CBS News / Sarah Ewall-Wice]
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