This year it is roughly $1,600. Not to bad, the highest has been $1954. It comes to every man woman and child qualifying in the state. Qualifications is that someone in simply a resident of the state for the previous calendar year.
To call it the government isnt quite fair. The Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation is its own corporation. %25 of resource revenue generated in the state goes to the fund. That is then invested in various ways, and a percentage of the interest only is paid to Alaskans. So it doesnt come at the expense of state government. It is totally aside, as set aside by Alaska constitution. There was talk of establishing something similar in Iraq. But that seems to be low on the priority level at this point.
What it boils down to is this. The resources of Alaska belong to its residents. This is dictated by its constitution. So when a resource extraction endeavour occurs, %25 of its value to the state are set aside to its residents. The rest falls to operating state government.