Some banks have halted the policy amid public backlash. Lawmakers have called on the Treasury to use its regulatory powers to put an end to the practice.

Some Treasury officials, however, believe that it would require Congress to amend the legislation to exempt the payments from court-ordered garnishment to pay creditors, according to a person familiar with the deliberations, which The Washington Post first reported.

Wall Street tumbles in a day of unsteady trading.

Stocks on Wall Street tumbled, with shares of energy producers following the price of crude oil lower on Monday.

The S&P 500 fell about 1.8 percent.

Oil producers were among the worst performing shares in the index. Exxon and Chevron both fell more than 4 percent. United Airlines and American Airlines also fell more than 4 percent, after the former said that it had lost almost $2 billion in the first three months of the year.

Technology stocks again fared better than the broader market, with the Nasdaq composite falling about 1 percent. Those stocks have been gaining in part because companies like Amazon and Netflix are seen as able to profit from stay-at-home orders as consumers pullback on spending elsewhere. Netflix, which will report its quarterly earnings results later this week, rose more than 3 percent on Monday.

As investors try to gauge the extent of the damage caused by the coronavirus pandemic, they’ll face a flood of updates this week from other big companies, with about one-fifth of the S&P 500 expected to report first-quarter profits.

Monday’s losses may have been tempered somewhat by progress on the response to the pandemic. Lawmakers in Washington said they were nearing a deal for a new support package for small businesses, and President Trump said the authorities would step up testing.