70 per cent keep tariff refunds in cash; 12.7 per cent selected staff bonuses

The first divide: access to refunds

In the Atlanta Fed's August survey of 1,156 executives, about one-quarter of firms reported being eligible for tariff refunds. Of those eligible, 40 per cent had received payment, equal to about 9 per cent of the full sample. The average refund was 1.7 per cent of annual revenue among recipients. The distributional calculation therefore begins before the money is used, with which firms managed to obtain it.^[1]

Access differed by company type. Public companies were more than twice as likely as private firms to have received a refund, and the rate also rose with company size. The most financially constrained firms accounted for one-third of refunds received. Both findings matter: cash-constrained firms obtained a share, while the capacity to apply and collect favoured larger and public companies.^[1]

The second divide: where did the money stay?

Among firms that received refunds, 70 per cent planned to retain at least some of the money as cash. More than half selected research and development or capital spending. Direct channels back to customers were narrower: 17.2 per cent reported customer rebates and 14.8 per cent price cuts. Staff bonuses were selected by 12.7 per cent and manager bonuses by 10.1 per cent.^[1]

Because the survey allowed firms to choose multiple uses, these rates measure the share of companies selecting each option, rather than the share of refund dollars. The ranking still offers a clear distributional picture: a balance-sheet buffer is the most common choice, while transmission to customers through prices or rebates and to workers through bonuses is narrower. A refund entering a company account does not mean the same amount quickly reaches household budgets.^[1]

The boundary of the distributional calculation

The results record planned uses; they do not measure completed spending or permanent wage gains. The survey does not quantify indirect effects. What is visible today is that fewer firms selected direct channels than company liquidity, and the gap between staff and manager bonuses was only 2.6 points.^[1]

Three figures track the distribution of refunds: how many eligible firms received payment, the cash-retention rate, and the share of firms selecting customer or worker channels. The first survey shows that tariff refunds are not an automatic form of household support; they are a flow filtered first through company access and balance-sheet choices.^[1]