Elon Musk will pay $5,000 to these citizens: are you on the DOGE Dividend list?
Musk, who’s leading the effort to cut federal spending, has toyed with the idea of giving the savings back to Americans. Here’s who’d benefit.
President Donald Trump and his billionaire backer leading the effort to cut federal spending have toyed with the idea of giving 20% of the estimated $2 trillion in savings back to Americans. The concept known as the ‘DOGE Dividend” was floated by James Fishback, CEO of the investment firm, Azoria in February.
He proposed the idea to the head of the Department of Government Efficiency on Elon Musk’s X social media platform to which he got the reply, “Will check with the President.” According to Fishback’s numbers, “79 million tax-paying households” would get a check for $5,000. But which households are those?
US citizens who would get $5,000 DOGE dividend check
According to Fishback’s proposal only those households that are net payers of federal income tax during the 2025 calendar year would be eligible to receive the tax-refund check being called the DOGE Dividend. That means a wide swath of the American public, especially those with more modest incomes, would not see any of the dividends from Musk’s cost-cutting agency.
President Trump and @ElonMusk should announce a ‘DOGE Dividend’—a tax refund check sent to every taxpayer, funded exclusively with a portion of the total savings delivered by DOGE. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/p5AZZj3Ttc
— James Fishback (@j_fishback) February 18, 2025
Going by numbers from 2022, just under 60% of Americans would get one of these $5,000 tax-refund checks after DOGE work wraps up when the agency expires in July 2026.
A little more than 40% of US households paid no individual income taxes in 2022 according to data published by Statista Research Department. Over 47% of households that year with income between $40,000 and $50,000 paid no individual income taxes.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for a $5,000 DOGE Dividend check
In order for any American to see a DOGE Dividend check, the proposal would need to get through Congress first. Lawmakers in Washington, including Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, have come out against any such measure. Although Johnson told the audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference, “politically, [a DOGE Dividend check] would be great for [Republicans],” he also said it would go against the party’s “core principles” of “fiscal responsibility.”
“That’s our brand and we have a $36 trillion federal debt,” he added. “We have a giant deficit that we’re contending with. I think we need to pay down the credit card, right?”
Furthermore, it has yet to be seen how much DOGE really saves. Musk and his pseudo-agency have been hyping up the savings being made, but upon closer inspection they have had to change the numbers that have been posted to much lower values, generally a fraction of what was originally stated.
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