By Jacki Thrapp
Americans likely won’t receive President Donald Trump’s proposed $2,000 dividend check ahead of the holidays, the president said on Nov. 14.
Trump speculated that if his proposal for the checks, to be paid for by money from U.S. tariff revenues, moves forward, select taxpayers would get the funds in 2026.
“It’ll be next year sometime,” Trump told reporters while speaking on Air Force One.
Trump revived his pitch to send Americans dividend checks after the Supreme Court held oral arguments to discuss if the administration was allowed to change import taxes using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.
“It’s a lot of money, but we’ve taken in a lot of money from tariffs,” Trump said on Friday.
“The tariffs allow us to give a dividend, if we want to do that. Now we’re going to do a dividend, and we’re also reducing debt we have because of Biden and others; we have 37 trillion in debt. So we’re going to be doing a dividend, which people will enjoy and spend and do what they want. But we’re also going to be reducing debt.”
The cash likely won’t be sent to every American.
“I’ll be giving back $2,000 or so to middle-income people, low-income people, everybody but the rich,” Trump said on Friday.
Trump did not specify what constitutes middle and low income.
The Pew Research Center classifies a lower-income household as one that makes less than $56,600 a year. It described a middle-income household as one that makes $56,600 to $169,800, according to data from 2022.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has proposed a different way to use the funds.
Bessent suggested that the tariff dividend could come as a tax decrease instead of checks. However, he said on Nov. 9 that he hadn’t yet pitched that idea to the president in an interview on ABC News’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos.
The president has floated a series of proposals to send checks to Americans in recent days.
Trump suggested that air traffic controllers, who worked every scheduled day during the shutdown, get a $10,000 bonus in a Truth Social post on Nov. 10.
“For those Air Traffic Controllers who were GREAT PATRIOTS, and didn’t take ANY TIME OFF for the ‘Democrat Shutdown Hoax,’ I will be recommending a BONUS of $10,000 per person for distinguished service to our Country,” Trump wrote.
Trump also worked with Congress in his first term to send Americans stimulus checks during the COVID-19 pandemic. The first round was issued in 2020. President Joe Biden sent out another round of checks in 2021.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
