Officials inside the administration have drafted a white paper exploring a payroll tax reduction, which would seek to boost the economy by immediately injecting more money into workers’ paychecks. In 2011 and 2012, the Obama administration employed a two-year payroll tax cut in an effort to stimulate what was a sluggish recovery from the recession that ended in 2009.

The payroll tax discussion was first reported Monday by The Washington Post.

Such a cut would require congressional approval. Administration officials said the idea had not been pushed with Mr. Trump and tried to tamp talk of it down.

A White House official said more tax cuts were on the table, “but cutting payroll taxes is not something that is under consideration at this time.” Another senior administration official cautioned that a payroll tax cut was not under serious consideration. And a third official said that discussions of what tools could be deployed to offset a recession, based on examining what had been done in previous slowdowns, were hypothetical and not being explored with urgency.