No, you won’t be getting a stimulus check this December. Despite viral social media posts suggesting otherwise, the Internal Revenue Service has not approved any new stimulus payments for December 2025, leaving millions of Americans who might have been hoping for extra cash before the holidays disappointed.
The confusion stems partly from President Trump’s proposed $2,000 “tariff dividend” checks that have garnered significant attention since he first mentioned them on November 9th via Truth Social. These payments, however, remain theoretical and wouldn’t arrive until mid-2026 at the earliest — if they materialize at all.
“A dividend of at least $2,000 a person (not including high income people!) will be paid to everyone,” Trump wrote in his social media post, setting off a wave of speculation about the potential for new direct payments to Americans.
Budget Reality Check
The proposal faces significant hurdles. Trump’s plan would limit payments to income filers earning less than $80,000 per year (or $160,000 for couples), with a total price tag upwards of $250 billion. That’s a hefty sum that would exceed the expected tariff revenue of $300-$350 billion — revenue that would also need to cover other government expenses.
Budget experts aren’t mincing words about the feasibility. “The numbers just don’t check out,” said Erica York, vice president of federal tax policy at the nonpartisan Tax Foundation.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has since indicated that any potential checks would target individuals or families making $100,000 or less. Meanwhile, White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett has been publicly discussing the proposal, though with few concrete details on implementation.
Past Relief Programs
Remember those pandemic-era stimulus checks? The last official relief came in the form of $1,400 credits tied to 2021 tax returns. The IRS did issue some automatic $1,400 payments between December 2024 and January 2025, but these were for unclaimed 2021 Recovery Rebate Credits.
Is there any chance you might still qualify for those? Unfortunately not. The final deadline to claim those credits was April 15, 2025 — a date that has long since passed.
The distinction between actual approved stimulus payments and proposed tariff dividends is critical. While the IRS distributed previous stimulus checks relatively quickly after congressional approval, the tariff dividend proposal would first need to survive congressional scrutiny, budgetary analysis, and implementation planning.
That’s assuming the math works out at all. With the proposed payments potentially outstripping the very tariff revenue meant to fund them, the economic viability remains questionable at best.
For Americans hoping for financial relief in the immediate future, the reality is sobering: no checks are coming this December, and any potential tariff dividends remain, for now, more political promise than economic certainty.
