Teenage and Young Adult Dependents Left Out of Cash Payments in Covid-19 Crisis

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act provides a one-time emergency cash payment to households below a certain income threshold. Thirty million income-eligible individuals are left out of the payment altogether due to restrictions that exclude dependents aged 17 and over who are still claimed as dependents by their families for tax purposes, as well as millions of immigrant families. Teenagers and young adults aged 17 to 24 represent one-third of all those left out.

In this brief, we describe the ten million teenagers and young adults left out of the CARES Act emergency cash payment and identify the states most impacted by their exclusion. Almost all of those left out are high school or college students, and half are in families where younger children are also present. The teenagers and young adults who are left out are more likely to live in families with incomes below the poverty line and are less likely to be able to access other forms of immediate income support, including unemployment insurance.

Congress can take steps to include all those excluded from the CARES Act cash payment and any future emergency cash support by removing the age restriction on, and any potential cap on the number of, eligible dependents, as well as the restrictions impacting immigrant families. A legislative fix to extend the CARES Act payment to most of those originally excluded was included in the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act, passed in mid-May 2020 by the US House of Representatives. Until further legislative action is taken by the US Senate, the individuals excluded from the CARES Act cash payment remain without this support.