In 2020, U.S. family farm households received $4.3 billion in federal assistance during the COVID-19 pandemic from Economic Impact Payments (EIPs, also known as stimulus payments).
USDA Economic Research Service (ERS) researchers used data from the most recent available 2019 Agricultural Resource Management Survey on farm households’ adjusted gross income and household composition to estimate the average EIP disbursed. The estimated average was $924, $2,408 and $2,466 for single, head of household and joint filers, respectively. This disparity partly reflects the lower income thresholds for single households, which resulted in some people not receiving the maximum EIP and others not receiving EIP at all.
Additionally, since unmarried people with dependents were assumed to file as head of household, these households were estimated to have received an additional $500 per dependent. Among family farm households, ERS researchers estimated that 18 percent of single filers did not receive EIP, compared with 17 percent of head of household filers and 13 percent of joint filers in 2020.
In April and May 2020, U.S. households of all types—farm or otherwise—received more than $266 billion from the EIP program. — USDA ERS
