Average tax refunds rise $346, well below the President's promised $1,000.

The administration’s projection for the 2026 tax filing season, in the form delivered by the Treasury Secretary in late December and reiterated in early January, was that the average federal tax refund would increase by $1,000 or more over the prior year as a result of the deductions and rate adjustments in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

The IRS filing-season statistics published for the week ending February 20, 2026, show the average refund at $3,462, an increase of $346 over the 2025 average of $3,116. The increase is real. The increase is also less than half of what the administration projected.

The arithmetic of the gap is the part to mark. A $346 increase in the average refund, on a base of $3,116, is an 11.1 percent improvement. By any normal yardstick that is a strong year. The administration would, in a less hyperbolic communications environment, be celebrating the 11 percent.

The administration is not, in this communications environment, celebrating the 11 percent. The administration is celebrating the unfulfilled $1,000 figure as if the $346 had not been measured. The Treasury Department’s official release this week describes refunds as “surging.” The President, asked about the figure on Friday, said refunds were “way up.” Both statements are technically defensible. Both statements decline to address the projection on which the political argument was made.

This is, in the data-driven sense, a legible problem. The administration set a number. The number was not met. The administration is, instead, treating the lesser number as if it were the original promise.

The Center for American Progress, which is on the public record skeptical of the original projection, predicted, in its November analysis, an increase in the range of $331 to $748. The actual figure of $346 falls at the lower end of that range. The Center’s analysis turned out to be, by the standard of contested policy estimation, more accurate than Treasury’s.

It is worth noting the political timing. The IRS data became public on a Friday, the same week as the State of the Union Address. The address that follows the next day will, for the most part, claim economic victory. The refund figure is not, by any measurable standard, the figure the administration was hoping to hold up. The figure will not be in the address.

A serious country, in a serious moment, would correct its projection downward, accept the 11 percent, and explain. A less serious country would do what is being done: claim the original number and let the smaller number recede in the page count.

Calmly documenting the decline.