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As pandemic legislation was passed, starting with the CARES Act in March 2020, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) assigned a code to identify each of the six laws. These codes, known as Disaster Emergency Fund Codes (DEFC), are used to track the spending funded under each legislation. Many of the codes were further refined through the description of the code, as "Emergency" or "Non-emergency."

While you may have heard them referred to as stimulus checks, the Economic Impact Payments were, for the most part, direct deposited into bank accounts or sent out as bank cards. More than 476 million payments totaling $814 billion in financial relief went to households impacted by the pandemic. The Internal Revenue Service based the amounts that individuals received on income, tax filing status, and number of children (or qualifying dependents, like a relative).