Good news for millions of American workers: Scott Bessent confirms a check for up to $2,000 in 2026
The Trump administration’s treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, says American taxpayers can expect to benefit from “very large” refunds.
The U.S. treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, says American taxpayers can expect to receive “very large” tax refunds early next year.
“$100bn to $150bn of refunds”
Speaking to reporters this week, Bessent said these refunds may be “between $1,000, $2,000 per household”.
He explained that they would arise from tax cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill, the Republican-backed tax and spending legislation signed by President Trump this summer.
“The bill was passed in July [and] working Americans didn’t change their withholding, so they’re going to be getting very large refunds in the first quarter,” Bessent said in Pennsylvania on Wednesday, per Newsweek.
“So I think we’re going to see $100 billion to $150 billion of refunds, which could be between $1,000, $2,000 per household. Then, they’ll change their withholding, and they’ll get a real increase in their wages.”
In recent months, President Trump has teased a potential “dividend of at least $2,000 a person” using revenue collected from his administration’s aggressive policy of tariffs on foreign imports.
Speaking to ABC last month, however, Bessent said such a dividend “could come in lots of forms”, including refunds resulting from tax cuts.
“It could just be the tax decreases that we’re seeing on the president’s agenda - no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security, deductibility of auto loans,” he said. “So, you know, those are substantial deductions that are being financed in the tax bill.”
Americans struggling with cost of living
The distribution of significant tax refunds would offer potential relief to Americans concerned about the cost of living, as polls show large sections of U.S. society are struggling to make ends meet.
In a survey published this week by the think tank the Century Foundation, nearly two thirds of respondents said they have resorted to buying cheaper or fewer groceries. Around half said they have been dipping into their savings to cover their costs.
And last month, a poll conducted for the media outlet Politico found that almost half of Americans are struggling to afford “groceries, utility bills, health care, housing and transportation”.
Inflation creeping up
While the U.S.’s current 3% rate of inflation remains well below the 40-year high it reached in mid-2022, it has been steadily ticking up since April and is above the Federal Reserve’s stated target of 2%.
As is noted by USA Today’s Joey Garrison, inflation is also noticeably higher than pre-covid levels. In March 2020, when the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared a pandemic, U.S. inflation sat at 1.5%.
“Really high costs”
Speaking this week, the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, acknowledged that American consumers are “experiencing really high costs”.
During a press conference to announce the Fed’s latest interest-rates cut, Powell said inflation “remains somewhat elevated”, noting that tariffs have contributed to rising prices in the goods sector.
However, he also pointed to “embedded higher cost” from previous years as a factor in Americans’ affordability struggles.
“A lot of that is not the current rate of inflation,” Powell said. “A lot of that is just embedded higher cost, due to higher inflation in 2022 and ’23. So that’s what’s going on. And so the best thing we can do is restore inflation to its 2% goal.”
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