Around six lakh people in Alaska will get a one thousand dollar payment this year. This money comes from something called the Permanent Fund Dividend. Alaska earns money from its natural resources like oil and gas. A part of those earnings is shared with the people who live there. It is basically a bonus for being an Alaska resident.
These dividends have been given since nineteen eighty two. But this year the amount is one of the lowest in almost twenty years. There used to be a formula to calculate how much people should get. It was based on how well the fund’s investments were doing. Lawmakers stopped using that formula because it became too expensive. If they had followed the old method this year, each person would have received about three thousand eight hundred dollars.
People in Alaska use this money in many different ways. Some save it for college. Some put it into savings accounts. Others donate it to charities. Many families use it for important winter needs like heating fuel, winter tires or snowmachines.
To get this dividend, a person must have lived in Alaska for the entire previous year. They also need to plan to stay in Alaska. There are a few more rules listed under the Alaska laws for the dividend.
People need to apply every single year. The application window is from the first of January to the thirty first of March. Anyone who wants to check the status of their application can use the myPFD portal. If someone applied on paper, they have to wait four to six weeks before checking.
Not everyone will receive the money on the same day. The payment dates depend on when the system shows the status as eligible but not paid. If someone has this status on the twelfth of November, they will be paid on the twentieth of November. If the status shows this on the tenth of December in two thousand twenty five, the payment will come on the eighteenth of December. If the same status appears on the seventh of January in two thousand twenty six, then the money will arrive on the fifteenth of January.