Updated Sept. 12, 2026, 4:05 p.m. ET
President Donald Trump is hoping money talks to voters ahead of November’s midterm elections.
The president, who previously has floated payments to Americans from dividends accrued from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and from tariff dividends, went to the wallet again during the GOP’s midterm convention in Dallas.
Speaking at the rally, Trump pledged to pay every American adult $5,000 if Republicans kept control of both houses of Congress in the Nov. 3 elections. The next day, Trump said the administration would pay $500 to nearly 1 million Americans in 30 states as part of an Obamacare refund.
Will Americans really get these payments? Here’s what we know.
How would Trump’s $5,000 election payments work?
During his Sept. 9 speech in Dallas, Trump said: “If the Republicans win, you win with us, and you get $5,000. It will be called the ‘Trump dividend.'”
The dividend, which must be spent in the U.S., is possible because of the “tremendous strength and success” of the American economy, Trump said. But he did not say how it would be paid for or how much it would cost.
In a White House press release the following day, the Trump administration suggested that the dividend is possible thanks to “unleashed trillions in new private investment” and reductions in government waste.
Experts say the dividend would cost an estimated $1.2 trillion and that Congress would need to approve the payments.
Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, said in a post on X that he would prepare legislation for the dividend.
Would there be enough votes for its passage? That’s a “good question,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune told Fox News on Thursday. “We will cross that bridge when we come to it.”
Democrats decried Trump’s proposal. Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, called the proposal a “political bribe,” while Rep. Dan Goldman, D-New York, called the pledge “corrupt and blatantly illegal.”
Even some Republicans criticized the plan. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis warned that it could “lead to more debt and inflation,” while former Rep. Bob Good, R-Virginia, described the checks as a “socialist vote-buying scheme,” The Hill reported.
“From the few details we have, it seems that the proposed $5,000 dividend would not have an income cap and would be extraordinarily costly,” Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said in a statement to CentralMaine.com. “Tax and spending decisions should be made based on the needs of the American people and the state of the economy; they should not appear to be tied to election results.”
Who would get those $500 Obamacare refund payments?
A day after announcing the $5,000 “Trump dividend” on Sept. 10, the White House posted a video and fact sheet on the administration’s plans to send $500 checks to qualifying Obamacare enrollees. Trump said the refunds stem from what his administration described as excess fees collected through Healthcare.gov, the federal marketplace for Affordable Care Act coverage.
The Trump White House says the Biden administration collected user fees from health insurers that were ultimately passed on to consumers through higher premiums. Those fees exceeded the amount needed to operate the federal exchange, the White House says.
The amount of excessive fees amounts to $500 million, Trump said. “Our Administration is doing the right thing and giving the money back to the people who were wrongly ripped off,” he said.
About 1 million people in 30 states who purchased coverage through the federal marketplace and did not receive premium assistance under the Affordable Care Act will qualify. The checks are expected to go out in October.
Critics have called the move disingenuous, noting that Senate Republicans in December 2025 rejected a plan to maintain COVID-era Obamacare subsidies that made health insurance more affordable for 22 million Americans.
“What an absolute joke,” said Brad Woodhouse, president of the left-of-center nonprofit advocacy group Protect Our Care, in a statement. “Five hundred dollars is a drop in the bucket compared to what Americans are paying because Trump and Republicans gutted health care to bankroll massive tax breaks for billionaires and big corporations.”
Trump has suggested payouts before
You can’t blame Americans if they are skeptical about getting payments decreed by Trump. But there have been successes.
In December 2025, all military personnel got $1,776 “Warrior Dividend” bonuses. Although Trump had said the payments would come from tariff revenue, the funds came from military housing funds Congress appropriated in Trump’s sprawling “One Big Beautiful Bill” law.
More recently, new “Trump Accounts” went live, depositing $1,000 into savings accounts for children born between 2025 and 2028. As of July 6, Trump said 6 million children had Trump Accounts, which are meant to serve as investment starters for America’s young – essentially an IRA for kids.
But two other dividends pitched to the public failed to materialize:
As for the latest $5,000 dividend Trump has proposed, economists worry about the possible repercussions, including increased inflation and higher interest rates.
Given such side effects, the $5,000 dividend checks don’t make sense, Garrett Watson, vice president of federal tax policy at the nonpartisan Tax Foundation, told USA TODAY.
The president, he said, is “promising something that almost certainly can’t be done, from a policy and political perspective.”
Contributing: Ken Alltucker, Zac Anderson, Aysha Bagchi, Christopher Cann, Daniel de Visé, Joey Garrison, Julia Gomez Bart Jansen, Melina Khan and Jeanine Santucci
Mike Snider is a national trending news reporter for USA TODAY. You can follow him on Threads, Bluesky, X and email him at mikegsnider & @mikegsnider.bsky.social & @mikesnider & msnider@usatoday.com.
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