Inflation is still running at 3.7% annually. Economic growth has slowed to 1.5%. Consumer confidence dropped again in August.
Four years of Biden-era economic damage didn't end when Biden left office. American families are still paying higher prices on groceries, housing, and energy — and the savings they burned through to survive it aren't coming back on their own.
Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri has a proposal. His American Worker Rebate Act would send $600 to every working adult and dependent in the country — $2,400 for a family of four — funded by tariff revenue the U.S. government has already collected. Checks would need to go out by December 31, 2026. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise is on board.
"Americans deserve a tax rebate after four years of Biden policies that have devastated families' savings and livelihoods," Hawley said.
The numbers behind the bill aren't abstract. The U.S. collected over $100 billion in tariff revenue in 2025 alone. Major corporations — Amazon received approximately $600 million in tariff refunds — have already moved to recover their costs. Hawley's argument is that American families absorbed those same costs at the register, and they deserve the same consideration.
Trump said something similar earlier this year. "We have so much money coming in, we're thinking about a little rebate," he said.
The bill includes income phase-outs — a 5% reduction for joint filers above $150,000, heads of household above $112,500, and individuals above $75,000. This is targeted at working families, not at the investment class that recovered from the Biden years without much trouble.
Not every Senate Republican is enthusiastic. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin said he wouldn't support it. "We're $37 trillion in debt," Johnson said. "At some point in time, this madness has to end." That concern deserves a hearing — but it applies most forcefully to deficit spending, not to directing already-collected revenue back to the people who paid it. Hawley's bill isn't borrowing. It's deciding where the money that already exists actually goes.
The bill is currently in the Senate Finance Committee. No floor vote has been scheduled.
December 31 falls five weeks after the midterms. If Congress moves it in time, American families get $2,400 before Christmas. The tariff revenue is real and it's already there. The only remaining question is whether it goes back to the families who absorbed four years of Biden-era price increases, or gets absorbed somewhere else in Washington.
