President Donald Trump promised over the weekend to provide every American with a $2,000 dividend to be distributed from what he said was tariff revenue.
“Everyone will be paid a dividend of at least $2,000 per person (not including high-income earners!),” the president partially wrote on social media on Sunday.
Within hours, however, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent cast doubt on the plan and said the payment could simply refer to tax savings enshrined by Trump’s signature domestic spending measure.
A tariff dividend could come “in many forms,” Bessent told ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday, adding that he had not spoken to Trump about the proposal.
The idea of a possible tariff dividend, reminiscent of pandemic-era stimulus checks, has raised questions about who would qualify and what to make of the Trump administration’s mixed signals on the proposal. Some economists questioned whether the dividend can be achieved with the tariff funds available.
Here’s what you need to know about the proposed $2,000 tariff dividends.
What is a dividend?
The term “dividend” generally describes a payment to individual shareholders, funded from a company’s profits.
In this case, the concept works similarly, indicating payments to Americans that are funded by taxes collected by Trump’s far-reaching tariffs.
The proposal mirrors the three stimulus checks mailed to Americans during the pandemic, two of which were authorized by Trump. Those three payments totaled up to $3,200 per tax filer, as well as $2,500 per child, according to the Pandemic Response Accountability Committeea watchdog established by Congress.
What did Trump say about a possible $2,000 tariff dividend?
Trump announced the policy proposal in a brief social media message Sunday morning, focusing on tax revenue related to the tariffs.
“People who are against tariffs are FOOLISH! We are now the richest and most respected country in the world, with almost no inflation and a record price in the stock market. 401k plans are the highest of all time,” the president wrote. “Everyone will be paid a dividend of at least $2,000 per person (not including high-income earners!).
The message did not specify who would qualify for the payment or how the policy would work.
The United States Supreme Court building is seen in Washington, October 4, 2023.
Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters, Files
Who would qualify for the $2,000 dividend?
It’s unclear who would qualify for the payment, although Trump said the measure would exclude “high-income people.”
The pandemic-era stimulus checks enacted by Trump were made available to individuals earning up to $75,000 a year and couples earning up to $150,000. Beyond those benchmarks, people with higher incomes were eligible for smaller payments.
Last year, the median income of American households was $83,730, the Census Bureau found.
Did Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent question dividend checks?
Hours after Trump’s announcement, Treasury Secretary Bessent appeared to pour cold water on the likelihood of tariff-related dividend controls.
On Sunday, Bessent suggested that the $2,000 savings could stem from tax cuts previously enshrined by Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill legislation, which he signed into law on July 4.
“It could just be the tax cuts that we’re seeing on the president’s agenda. No tip tax, no overtime tax, no Social Security tax, no auto loan deductibility. Those are substantial deductions that are being funded in the tax bill,” Bessent told ABC News’ “This Week” on Sunday.
“The real goal of tariffs is to rebalance trade and make it fairer,” Bessent added.
Trump and Bessent’s contradictory comments come days after the Supreme Court heard arguments over whether a president has the constitutional authority to unilaterally impose tariffs. Arguing on behalf of the Trump administration, Attorney General John Sauer downplayed the revenue-raising component of the policy, saying the tariffs do not encroach on the taxing power granted to Congress by the Constitution.
“The fact that [the tariffs] increasing revenue is only incidental,” Sauer told the judges.
Has the United States raised enough tariff revenue to fund $2,000 checks?
If Trump made dividend payments available to anyone earning $100,000 or less, the policy would reach about 150 million Americans, representing roughly $300 billion in dividends, Erica York, a policy expert at the Tax Foundation, said in a mail in X.
As of Sept. 30, the federal government had generated $195 billion in tariff-related revenue, according to the Treasury Department.
By those calculations, the estimated $300 billion cost of the dividend check proposal would far exceed the amount of tariff revenue currently available.
By taking into account only the revenue generated by Trump’s new taxes and deducting some negative budget impact from those policies, York estimated net tariff revenues of just $90 billion, still short of the $300 billion required.
Additionally, depending on how the Supreme Court rules on Trump’s legal authority to impose tariffs, the White House could be forced to return tens of billions of dollars in revenue to importers who paid the tax, the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget concluded.
In theory, however, the Trump administration could promise to pay the dividend from the expected tariff revenues. The Treasury Department has forecast $3 trillion in tariff revenue over the next decade. If the Trump administration chooses that route, the dividend payments would increase the federal debt, which currently stands at more than $38 trillion. according the Treasury Department.
