Trump calls $5,000 DOGE stimulus checks a 'great idea'

Camila Pedrosa, The Sacramento Bee on Mar 12, 2025

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President Donald Trump has voiced his support for distributing $5,000 stimulus checks from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

The idea of a so-called “DOGE Dividend” came from James Fishback, CEO of the investment firm Azoria.

In a February post on X, Fishback described the dividend as “a tax refund check sent to every taxpayer, funded exclusively with a portion of the total savings delivered by DOGE.”

According to The Associated Press, Trump said he was interested in pursuing the idea of sending about 20% of federal funds saved by DOGE — which Fishback estimated at about $400 billion — to U.S. taxpayers.

“I love it,” Trump reportedly told a reporter aboard Air Force One. “A 20% dividend, so to speak, for the money that we’re saving by going after the waste, fraud and abuse and all of the other things that are happening. I think it’s a great idea.”

Here’s what to know:

Who would get a DOGE stimulus check?

While the Trump administration had yet to reveal any firm plans for distributing stimulus checks, Fishback proposed sending checks to select U.S. residents who paid income tax in 2025.

Under his plan, only net-income taxpaying households — or, households that pay more in taxes than they get back — would receive the dividend checks, NBC News reported.

“Most low-income households do not pay federal income taxes, typically because they owe no tax or because tax credits offset the tax they would owe,” the Tax Policy Center said.

“The conditional nature of the tax refund ... incentivizes labor force participation,” Fishback wrote in his proposal on X.

How much money could taxpayers get?

According to Fishback’s proposal document, the dividend would split roughly $400 billion across 79 million taxpayers, which comes out to $5,000 per check.

Musk hopes to cut government spending by $2 trillion by 2026, he confirmed in an interview on X in January.

When would dividends go out?

It’s unlikely stimulus checks would go out anytime soon.

Despite having open support from Trump, Fishback’s DOGE dividend plan would have to overcome multiple obstacles before coming to fruition, according to personal finance publications Money and Forbes.

One of the major barriers is financing the checks, Money wrote.

On March 2, DOGE posted its third self-audit online, claiming it had saved $105 billion. However, a Yahoo News analysis revealed that only $19.8 billion of savings were itemized on the page.

That means DOGE would need to save more than $6.6 billion daily starting on Tuesday and continuing through the end of the year in order to reach the $2 trillion in savings required to afford $5,000 stimulus checks.

The proposal also faces a legislative challenge.

Congress would have to pass a bill to approve the distribution of stimulus checks.

Some Republican lawmakers have expressed hesitance to focus on a DOGE dividend rather than lowering the national deficit or expanding tax cuts, according to Forbes.

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