In his address to the nation Wednesday night, President Trump announced that more than 1 million U.S. service members will receive “warrior dividends” worth $1,776 in the next few days.
“In honor of our nation’s founding in 1776, we are sending every soldier $1,776,” Trump said. “Think of that. And the checks are already on the way. Nobody understood that one until about 30 minutes ago.”
However, the “warrior dividend” is not a new bonus, as Trump implied, but a rebranding of an existing program funded by Congress to help troops cover the cost of their housing, tweaked to combine what is usually a bi-weekly or monthly stipend into one lump sum.
A housing aid program: In the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act that became law in July, Congress provided $2.9 billion to “supplement the basic allowance for housing payable to members of the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and Space Force.”
Now referred to as a “warrior dividend” by the White House, the one-time payments are scheduled to go to roughly 1.28 million active-duty service members and 174,000 members of the reserves, at a total cost of $2.6 billion. The payments are tax-free because they are intended to cover living expenses, although there are questions about how the payments will be treated for those who live in military housing on base.
The remaining $300 million from Congress’s $2.9 billion allocation will be used for future housing stipend payments, The Hill’s Sarah Fortinsky reports. Although Trump said “every soldier” will receive the payments, they will be limited to the ranks below generals and admirals.
Trump also claimed that revenues from the tariffs he has imposed on trading partners around the world are at least partially funding the payments — “We made a lot more money than anybody thought because of tariffs,” he said — but there is no apparent connection between the housing payments authorized by Congress last summer and the tariff revenues. Trump would need authorization from Congress to redirect tariff revenues.
Lawmakers respond: Some of Trump’s allies in Congress were enthusiastic about the payments, with Republican Sen. Jim Banks of Indiana saying the checks were “great news for military families.”
Democratic Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois, a former helicopter pilot who lost her legs in the Iraq war, had a very different take. “Your $1,776 ‘warrior checks’ aren’t Christmas bonuses—you’re just stealing money out of a fund meant to help our troops find affordable housing,” she said on X. “Once a conman always a conman.”