Treasury Secretary Hints at Income Limit on Trump’s $2,000 Tariff Checks

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Wednesday that the Trump administration is considering setting an income cap for President Trump’s proposed $2,000 “tariff dividend,” potentially restricting the benefit to families earning less than $100,000 a year.

“Well, there are a lot of options here — the president’s talking about a $2,000 rebate, and that would be for families making less than, say, $100,000,” Bessent said during an appearance on Fox & Friends. When pressed on whether a final decision had been made, he clarified, “We haven’t. It’s in discussion.”
The proposal follows a turbulent week for the administration, coming days after Trump defended his use of “reciprocal” tariffs before the Supreme Court. The president first floated the idea of a $2,000 dividend last week but offered few details on how it would be funded or distributed.

Bessent later elaborated on ABC’s This Week, suggesting that the payments could take various forms — including tax relief. “It could be just the tax decreases that we are seeing,” he said, referencing provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the sweeping economic package Trump signed into law earlier this year.

According to Bessent, the administration’s broader tax strategy — which eliminates taxes on tips, overtime pay, and Social Security income — has already begun delivering “big refunds” for working families. He also highlighted a lesser-known feature of the same law: the creation of “Trump accounts” for children under 18. Between 2025 and 2028, the federal government will open accounts for minors and deposit a one-time $1,000 contribution for each.

Trump teased the idea of a $2,000 dividend again on social media Sunday, writing that “a dividend of at least $2000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone.” But analysts and lawmakers remain skeptical about the feasibility of such a payout.

Any large-scale direct payment program would require congressional approval, and even some Republicans have expressed concerns about the cost. “It’ll never pass,” Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) said in July. “We have a $37 trillion debt.”

Revenue from Trump’s tariffs, enacted under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), has totaled roughly $90 billion since their implementation, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data. That figure pales in comparison to the hundreds of billions needed to fund a nationwide $2,000 dividend.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget previously estimated that a similar COVID-era proposal for $2,000 stimulus checks would cost about $464 billion. Even with an income cap of $100,000, the payments would still likely carry a price tag of around $300 billion, according to Erica York, vice president of federal tax policy at the Tax Foundation.

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