Is the administration of President Donald Trump giving every adult in the United States $18,000? No, that's not true: As of February 7, 2025, the administration had made no such announcement. A post saying so directed viewers to a nongovernment website that does not mention any federal program passing out $18,000 checks.
The claim appeared in a post on Instagram on February 3, 2025. It included a video of a man talking and read:
The Trump administration is still giving every Adult 18,000 dollars this is how you get it!!!💯💰🎙️
This is what the post looked like on social media at the time of writing:
(Source: Instagram screenshot taken on Thu Feb 06 21:57:24 2025 UTC)
In the post's video, the man claimed:
The Trump administration is giving every adult in America $18,000. That's $18K. Nothing to do with the freeze. The money's still out there, you just got to apply, and people ain't applying, so there's plenty of money out there. Where you go? Findhelp.org.
Findhelp.org is a real website (archived here) -- it promises its software platforms help community and health care organizations, governments and businesses manage and coordinate care -- but there is nothing on the site about a federal program passing out $18,000 checks. The site is also not a government website. Genuine government websites use ".gov" and ".mil" in their domain names.
Similarly, there is nothing on the White House website (archived here) about a program that would give $18,000 to every U.S. adult. Results of the failed search can be seen below:
(Source: whitehouse.gov screenshot taken on Fri Feb 07 03:12:40 2025 UTC)
A page on an actual government website (archived here) warns the public against falling for "free money" scams. It advises:
The government does not offer free money or grants to people for personal needs. Learn how to report 'free money' scams and find government benefits or loans to help with expenses.
Lead Stories has written about other false claims involving Trump and supposed payments to all Americans. See here (archived here) for those debunks.
