The feds have opened the money spigot and literally billions of dollars have flowed directly to citizens of Massachusetts.
How much money are we talking? Four billion -- as in $4,000,000,000!
That's the number the U.S. Treasury and Internal Revenue Service put out earlier this month in a joint announcement.
To be precise, there were 2,503,206 individual federal economic stimulus/ pandemic relief checks sent to Massachusetts, as of Friday, May 8, those agencies reported...and all those checks added up to $4,008,005,049.
The average payment to Massachusetts individuals was $1,200.
According to the IRS, during the first four weeks of the stimulus program, roughly 130 million persons nationwide received federal checks with a cumulative value of $200 billion.
IRS Commissioner Chuck Rettig said, "We are working hard to continue delivering these payments to Americans who need them. The vast majority of payments have been delivered in record time, and millions more are on the way every week."
Four billion dollars suddenly finding its way into the pockets of two-and-a-half million Bay Staters is a big deal. Obviously, it is helping us weather the COVID-19 economic depression, especially the million or so who have lost their jobs.
But it is no panacea. It cannot make everyone whole. It cannot begin to banish every fear about money and the future. One reason why is the enormity and complexity of the Massachusetts economy.
According to a 24/7 Wall Street analysis, our state's gross domestic product in 2019 approached $500 billion!
The precise Massachusetts GDP for that year was $490,200,000,000.
Our annual economic output was about the same as that of the country of Norway, the 24/7 Wall Street analysis indicated. On the stage of the world economy, we'd be considered a little giant, pre-pandemic.
Now, the little giant's in the ICU with multiple, compound fractures.
It's going to take many months for it just to walk, and maybe years before it can run again.
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