Jaspreet Singh Breaks Down Trump's $5K Dividend Promise — Is It Feasible?
Entrepreneur, licensed attorney, financial educator and Minority Mindset brand founder Jaspreet Singh has some thoughts on the $5,000 dividend payment that President Donald J. Trump promised every American adult (provided the GOP retakes the House and Senate in November) at the Republican Midterm Convention on Sept. 9.
In a recent YouTube video, Singh offered his 2.52 million subscribers his take on the proposal. He outlined how the math would work (or more likely, how it wouldn’t) and the possible ripple effects on adjacent issues, including inflation, interest rates and energy prices.
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Finally, Singh shared a few key takeaways for investors, regardless of their politics or whether they expected the payments to ever arrive in the mail. With the proposed dividends generating both controversy and confusion, Singh attempted to cut through the clutter by focusing on the financials.
A Sticky Math Problem
Singh started by crunching the numbers in their simplest form — adding up the cost of giving $5,000 to roughly 250 million Americans. Next, he noted that the U.S. is already grappling with roughly $40 trillion in debt, but that Trump’s workaround is to pay for his proposed dividend checks with tariff revenue.
However, Singh countered that relying on import taxes would leave a 13-figure shortfall.
“Remember, the cost for these stimulus checks would be about $1.25 trillion,” he said. “Tariffs are bringing in about $200 billion a year.”
Interest Rates, Inflation and the Fed’s Dilemma
Next, Singh cautioned that taking on debt or printing money to cover the trillion-dollar-plus funding gap would have widespread ramifications and put the Federal Reserve in a lose-lose situation.
“Number one, they want to keep inflation down, and number two, they want to keep the job market strong,” said Singh. “That's what the Federal Reserve Bank is supposed to do.”
Singh explained that the Fed is already torn between raising interest rates to cool stubborn inflation or lowering them to spur a lagging non-AI job market. He predicts that a massive injection of borrowed cash into the economy would make an already bad situation much worse.
Pain at the Pump and the Prospects of Post-Election Relief
Singh noted that Trump also made another promise that might prove impossible to keep — that gas prices would fall below $2 per gallon, but again, only after voters re-elect a Republican majority in Congress.
However, just as the president does not control interest rates, the chief executive also does not set gas prices, which Singh believes will stay elevated as long as the Iran conflict remains unresolved and the Strait of Hormuz remains choked off.
“Oil prices are a global commodity,” he said. “It's not just something that's priced in the United States. It's priced globally, and when the United States attacked Iran, that created a huge spike in oil prices.”
Check or No Check, Investors Should Always Follow the Money
Singh concluded with advice for investors that applies regardless of which way the country votes in November. He advised ignoring your political leanings and faith (or lack thereof) in President Trump’s ability to deliver on his proposed stimulus payments or promise of rock-bottom gas prices. Instead, Singh suggested listening to what America’s leaders say, watching what they do and investing according to where the most money is being spent.
“As an investor, you want to put your money where the money is moving,” he said. “You don't want to put your money where the money already was, which means you want to pay attention to the flow of money. Well, the largest spender in our economy is not me or you. It's not Nvidia or Tesla or SpaceX. It is the United States government.”
Singh, a longtime advocate of income-generating assets, said the current climate justifies a shift toward investing where the government is investing, most notably, rare earth minerals and semiconductors, which the U.S. is pouring money into to reduce reliance on China and other foreign countries.
In short, don’t rely on a $5,000 government payment you might never get. Invest what you already have where the government is spending most heavily.
Editor’s note on political coverage: MoneyLion is nonpartisan and strives to cover all aspects of the economy objectively and present balanced reports on politically focused finance stories. You can find more coverage of this topic on MoneyLion.com.
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