Social media has been buzzing with the possibility of American taxpayers getting a check from the money Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency claims it's saving the country.

But how much would DOGE actually have to recoup for the 79 million tax-paying households to get the proposed $5,000 checks? Let's do the math! 79 million × $5,000 = $395 billion.

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Nearly $400 billion in savings. That's how much DOGE would have to save for each taxpayer to receive the $5,000 checks — and that's without any of the savings going to pay down the nation's debt, which many lawmakers have said they want to do with the money.

President Donald Trump appeared open to a plan to send checks to taxpayers, however, he suggested returning 20% of the DOGE savings to Americans. So, under Trump's plan, DOGE would need to save $1.975 trillion for Americans to receive $5,000 checks.

For perspective, that's more than the entire federal discretionary budget, which covers everything from defense to education to transportation, combined.

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DOGE claims it has already saved Americans $55 billion, but the number has been disputed because errors are consistently spotted in their accounting. For instance, DOGE claimed it saved $8 billion after canceling an Immigration and Customs Enforcement contract. However, the amount of that contract was actually worth $8 million.

Whether Americans should expect to see any check from DOGE savings is still highly speculative, so it's probably not a good idea to plan on spending that money before you have the cash in your hand.