if Republicans retain control of both the House and Senate in the November midterm elections. Trump said the money would have to be spent in the United States.
The proposed payment would be larger than the direct stimulus payments distributed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Under the CARES Act signed by Trump in March 2020, most eligible adults received up to $1,200. A second round of $600 payments was authorized in December 2020. A third round of up to $1,400 was later enacted in March 2021 under President Joe Biden.
Taken together, an eligible individual could have received as much as $3,200 in direct federal stimulus payments across those three rounds.
A $5,000 payment would therefore exceed that combined amount by $1,800.
The scale of Trump’s new proposal would also be enormous. Reuters reported that providing $5,000 to roughly 270 million U.S. adults could cost approximately $1.35 trillion. Trump did not provide details about how the program would be funded or implemented.
Vice President JD Vance later suggested that wealthy Americans might be excluded from the payment, although the exact eligibility requirements have not been established. Trump has also previously proposed other forms of direct payments that were never implemented.
The proposal would require congressional action before payments could be distributed. For now, the $5,000 “Trump Dividend” remains a proposal rather than an approved federal benefit.
