Local residents debate how to use their rebates
Ithaca — How do you spend a tax rebate check?
That’s the question people across the country have been asking themselves since May 2, when the federal government began sending out the first of more than 130 million economic stimulus payments in a $168 billion aid stimulus package.
The checks and direct deposit payments, which range from $300 to $1,200 per household, plus $300 extra per child, will be sent to most U.S households by early July and are intended to jumpstart the country’s sluggish economy.
Schuyler, Chemung, Tompkins and Seneca counties stand to get about $111.5 million worth of those tax rebate checks. Residents of Tompkins County said they’ll be using the money primarily to pay off bills, make home improvements and to take vacations.
Additionally, almost a third of the 30 residents interviewed at the Target and Best Buy stores in the The Shops at Ithaca Mall said they’d be simply saving the money and not spending any of it.
No one said they’d be spending all the money on a big ticket purchase.
