WASHINGTON (SBG) - COVID stimulus checks were issued to single taxpayers who made less than $75,000 and couples who made less than $150,000. But watchdog group Open the Books says that some wealthy Americans received stimulus payments as well.

"The owner of the Buffalo Bills and the Buffalo hockey team, he's worth $6 billion. He received the stimulus check," said Open The Books’ Adam Andrzejewski to The National Desk's Jan Jeffcoat. “George Soros, the hedge fund manager and the currency trader, he and his son received stimulus checks. They're worth about $10 billion. They do say they returned the money.”

But Open the Books says the fact that wealthy Americans received stimulus checks shows the method Congress uses to send checks does not work properly.

“Congress rushed this bill. This was the first stimulus bill at the height of the pandemic in March 2020. They didn’t even have time to read the bill,” said Andrzejewski. “Many of these problems could have been stopped in the legislation if we just had time to read it.”

According to Open the Books, California distributed at least $20 billion in fraudulent unemployment benefits since the start of the pandemic.

“Up to 40 million Americans lost their jobs at the height of the pandemic, Congress rushed aid to those people and the states were woefully unprepared to accept it,” said Andrzejewski. “Things were so bad in California that 35,000 prisoners received a check, including 133 prisoners who are on death row.”