Topic
Government cash transfers to individuals, such as stimulus checks, rebates and dividend-style payments, often debated for their fiscal cost and economic impact.
Donald Trump's $5,000 midterm dividend has alternated between adult citizens and all citizens, a 73 million-person gap. With only 21% of registered voters expecting the check in an Economist/YouGov poll, the pledge is a conditional promise with two possible price tags.
Reality
The $5,000 check Trump promised at the Republican midterm convention would cost about $1.35 trillion by one Wharton estimate. It rests on tariff revenue the Supreme Court has already narrowed.
Reality
Trump promised $5,000 to each American adult if his party keeps its congressional majorities, and Fortune reports that such a proposal could cost more than $1 trillion. No financing was attached to it.
Perspective Coverage
6 publishersReality
Trump promised American adults $5,000 each if Republicans hold Congress, a payout put near $1.3 trillion, and the two Republican leaders who would have to legislate it have both declined to promise it.
Perspective Coverage
3 publishersReality
Kent Smetters of the Penn Wharton Budget Model puts the checks at about $1.35 trillion, or $1.15 trillion if a $400,000 income cap he supplied himself applies, against a federal deficit already running near $2 trillion a year.
Reality
A Fortune column pins the 30-year's move to 5.35 per cent on Trump's Dallas pledge and prices the payment at $8,000 a head. That second figure holds only if the coupons are borrowed too.
Reality