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Weeks after the idea was first introduced, the reality of if and when Americans can receive the proposed $5,000 dividend payments from the Elon Musk-headed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) remains in limbo.

While the proposed stimulus checks would give a portion of the government savings accrued by DOGE back to taxpayers, not everyone would qualify for the $5,000 payment that President Donald Trump has endorsed.

Are DOGE checks actually coming? Who could qualify? Here’s what to know.

Who is eligible for DOGE checks? Lower-income Americans likely won’t qualify

According to the original proposal by Azoria investment firm CEO James Fishback, DOGE would only send out payments to households above a certain income level that are “net-income taxpayers” (individuals who pay more in taxes than they get back), with lower-income Americans not qualifying for the return, according to USA TODAY.

“A lot of low-income households essentially saw transfer payments of 25 to 30% of their annual income,” Fishback said of the pandemic stimulus checks, adding, “This exclusively goes to households that are net-payers of federal income tax, and what that means is that they have a lower propensity to spend and a higher propensity to save a transfer payment like the DOGE dividend.”

When would DOGE checks be mailed out? There’s still a long way to go

Taxpayers could be in for a long wait before DOGE stimulus checks are sent out. For the $5,000 checks to be given to Americans, DOGE must first meet its massive $2 trillion savings goal, and possible checks must be approved by Congress before being mailed out.

DOGE says that by slashing federal jobs and reducing spending, it has saved more than $100 billion and is still considering the idea of the $5,000 payouts.

Are DOGE checks a good idea? Economists have doubts

Many economists say DOGE stimulus checks are a bad idea that could deepen inflation, and that the money would be better spent paying off the budget deficit and offsetting taxes, the Arizona Republic reports.

“It would increase the deficit, it would increase immediate consumer spending, and that would have inflationary consequences, which is something we don’t want right now,” Judge Glock, director of research at the Manhattan Institute, told Scripps News.

Another problem with stimulus checks is inflation. If DOGE starts “mailing out large checks to large numbers of people, wow, that’s going to put a big boost to inflation because Trump’s putting out tariffs, and tariffs mean more expensive goods and services,” Jay Zagorsky, a professor at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business, told CBS News.

But Kevin Hassett, Trump’s director of the National Economic Council, said during a February press briefing that the checks wouldn’t be inflationary because the government had already planned to spend the money. This is a sentiment echoed by Fishback in recent interviews.

“If we don’t spend government money and we give it back to the people, if they spend it all, then you’re even,” he said, according to financial news site Investopedia. “But they’re probably going to save a lot of it, in which case you’re reducing inflation.”

DOGE won’t achieve enough savings to issue checks “big enough” to create inflation, Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, told The Associated Press. She called the idea of a DOGE dividend “ridiculous.”

“There’s no money there, and certainly not enough money to make a big contribution to taxpayers,” said Kamarck, who worked with Vice President Al Gore to cut government waste in the Clinton administration. “The guy just says things,” she added, referring to Musk.

This story was updated to add a video.