President Donald Trump made one of his boldest promises yet on stage Wednesday night at the Republican midterm convention in Texas – he vowed to send $5,000 to every adult American citizen if Republicans retain control of the House and Senate in November’s midterm elections.

“So if the Republicans win, you win with us, and you get $5,000,” the 80-year-old president told a crowd of supporters gathered in Dallas. “We’ll call it the Trump dividend. Congratulations! Now all we have to do, now all we have to do is win.”

The pledge fits a pattern for Trump. Since returning to the White House last year, he has repeatedly floated proposals to send cash directly to tens of millions of Americans, whether framed as stimulus checks or dividends.

But 19 months into his second term, no such large-scale payments have been issued – and Americans are left waiting for his promises to be fulfilled.

DOGE Dividends

Early in 2025, when Elon Musk was slashing the federal workforce through the Department of Government Efficiency, an investor floated the idea sending Americans $5,000 checks — funded by savings the cuts would accrue.

“American taxpayers deserve a ‘DOGE Dividend’: 20% the money that DOGE saves should be sent back to hard-working Americans as a tax refund check. It was their money in the first place,” the investor, James Fishback, wrote on X on February 14, 2025.

Musk said he would check with Trump on the idea. A few days later, the president expressed interest, bringing it up repeatedly.

“We’re considering giving 20% of the DOGE savings to American citizens and 20% to paying down the debt,” he said during a Florida event. Later on Air Force One, he told reporters: “I love it. A 20% dividend, so to speak, for the money that we saving by going after the waste and fraud and abuse and all the other things that are happening.”

Musk’s DOGE experiment, which polls showed was unpopular, did not end up reducing federal spending. And the so-called DOGE Dividend never materialized.

Tariff dividends

Later in 2025, after Trump unveiled his sweeping Liberation Day tariffs, the president vowed to send back some of the revenue generated by the levies to Americans.

“We are taking in Trillions of Dollars and will soon begin paying down our ENORMOUS DEBT, $37 Trillion,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on November 9, 2025. “A dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone.”

Much of Trump’s tariff authority was ultimately struck down by the Supreme Court in February, and the dividends have yet to appear.

A New York Times reporter asked the president about the dividends in January — before the Supreme Court’s landmark decision — and he said those payments could potentially be sent out at the end of 2026, now only a few months away.

Health care payments

In December 2025, Trump signaled his support for a GOP proposal that would have deposited checks of up to $1,500 into Americans’ health care accounts.

The proposal was unveiled by Senator Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, to give certain Affordable Care Act enrollees a one-time deposit of either $1,000 or $1,500. An estimated 19.2 million people are enrolled in ACA Exchange plans as of February.

“I like the concept,” Trump told reporters on December 9, 2025. “I don’t want to give the insurance companies any money…They’ve been ripping off the public for years.”

The enhanced ACA subsidies expired a few weeks later, leading many enrolled in Obamacare health plans to see their premiums rise, and those dividends never went out.

The national debt problem

Amid Trump’s multiple proposals to send out checks to Americans, the U.S. national debt continues to balloon to record levels, topping $40 trillion for the first time last month.

The debt doubled under the watch of Trump and Joe Biden, rising by $11.6 trillion during Trump’s two terms and $8.4 trillion during Biden’s one term, according to Reuters. Much of those increases came during the Covid pandemic, when the federal government borrowed at a feverish pace, including to dole out several rounds of stimulus checks.

The first round of payments under a Covid stimulus plan, while Trump was still in office, cost a total of $300 billion and resulted in $1,200 in checks to many Americans. However, studies found that most went to savings or to pay off debt.