President Donald Trump promised on Wednesday to send every American adult a $5,000 check if Republicans keep control of the U.S. House and Senate after the midterm elections.
“If the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000,” Trump told the crowd at the Republican Midterm Convention in Dallas. “It will be called the Trump dividend.”
WATCH: Trump promises $5,000 ‘dividend’ for Americans if GOP wins midterms
Trump said the rationale behind the proposal was the country’s “tremendous economic success,” saying the U.S. “is making so much money.”
He compared the dividend check to successful companies distributing cash to shareholders, and to his administration’s decision to give members of the military checks for $1,776 in December.
Asked about how the government would pay for the dividend checks, Vice President JD Vance told Fox News that some of the money would come from tariff revenue.
Here’s what to know about the legal and economic barriers facing Trump’s promise.
How much would the $5,000 checks cost?
The U.S. Census Bureau estimates there are about 245 million U.S. citizen adults. Giving each of them a $5,000 check would cost about $1.2 trillion.
Trump said during his speech that the money would go to “every adult citizen in the United States of America,” which means it could exclude U.S. citizens living abroad.
The Association of Americans Resident Overseas estimated 5.5 million Americans lived abroad in 2024. That number includes children.
The figure could also vary if the check is only given to U.S. citizens in certain tax brackets. Vance told Fox News the money would be for “the American middle class,” and for “American workers.”
Could tariff revenue pay for the $5,000 checks?
Trump promised to give Americans $2,000 tariff dividend checks last November. Checks never went out.
The Tax Foundation, at the time, published a report saying U.S. tariff revenue would not be able to cover the $280- to $607 billion cost of the dividend checks. The foundation estimated that Trump’s tariffs would generate about $158 billion in revenue in 2025 and $208 billion in 2026.
The analysis was made before the Supreme Court struck down most of Trump’s tariffs in February.
WATCH: Why the Supreme Court ruled against Trump’s tariffs
After the Supreme Court ruling, Trump imposed a global 10% tariff.
The cost of the $5,000 checks would spend “almost all the revenue that the new tariffs are projected to bring in *over a decade*,” Erica York, senior economist at the Tax Foundation wrote Wednesday in a post on X after Trump’s latest announcement.
The White House did not directly respond to PBS News’ question about how tariff revenue would cover the cost of the payments.
“President Trump has consistently proven his doubters wrong, drawing a clear contrast with the Democrats’ record of historic inflation, unfettered illegal immigration, skyrocketing crime, and weakness on the world stage,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told PBS News in a statement.
Can Trump even do this? Is it legal?
Any proposal involving sending checks to Americans requires congressional approval.
Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, wrote on X that he would introduce a bill to “get the Trump Dividend passed immediately after the November 3rd election.”
However, spending $1.2 trillion to send checks to Americans would affect the national debt and economic inflation, which lawmakers might oppose.
“The U.S. is already running an unsustainable deficit, this would only blow up even more and increase the already high odds of a debt crisis over next five years,” Kenneth Rogoff, a former chief economist at the IMF and a Harvard University economics professor, said in an email.
As for whether promising a financial incentive during an election is legal, Rick Hasen, an election law professor at UCLA, wrote in a blog post that “Trump would have a strong First Amendment defense.”
Hasen cited the 1982 U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. Hartlage. The court ruled that a Kentucky county candidate did not violate an anticorruption law when he promised to lower commissioner’s salaries during a news conference.
Even though Hasen questioned Trump’s ability to get the checks approved by Congress, he wrote that he believes “they are constitutionally protected.”
Richard Painter, government ethics expert and corporate law professor at the University of Minnesota, agreed, saying candidates are allowed to make campaign promises, such as raising or lowering taxes or funding social programs.
He compared Trump’s plan to Democratic presidential candidate George McGovern’s promise in 1972 to give every American $1,000 a year if he won the election. He lost to incumbent President Richard Nixon.
Painter said voters saw through McGovern’s promise and knew it would cause inflation.
When else has Trump promised similar payments?
While the dollar amounts and the source of the money have differed, this isn’t the first time Trump or his allies have promised payments to the American people.
In February 2025, Trump and billionaire Elon Musk endorsed a proposal to give Americans “DOGE dividend checks.” The money would come from savings secured by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, which Musk briefly oversaw.
READ MORE: Trump backs idea to send some budget savings claimed by DOGE to citizens
Musk’s aim was to save $2 trillion in spending cuts, which would translate to checks of about $5,000.
The checks did not materialize, and DOGE didn’t save $2 trillion via spending cuts. The agency’s “Wall of Receipts” claimed $110 billion in savings. But a government watchdog said in an August 2026 report that the figure was made up of estimates that were incorrect or lacked supporting evidence.
Trump’s November promise of $2,000 tariff dividends also did not materialize.
WATCH: Trump floats tariff ‘dividends’ for Americans, but experts question the math
With his past of failed promises, Trump’s new pledge is “Not gonna happen,” the Tax Foundation’s York wrote on X.
