“Free money.” That’s what the Trump administration promised to millions of US children during the Super Bowl. The windfall would come courtesy of Trump Accounts, the new investment accounts for children under eighteen, which people can sign up for online or when filing their 2025 taxes.
On paper, the program, established by President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, appears promising. The government will provide $1,000 seed deposits for children born between 2025 and 2028, and tech CEO Michael Dell and his wife, Susan, will add another $250 each for twenty-five million children aged ten and under who live in areas with median incomes below $150,000. Other big-name companies, from Nvidia to Chipotle, have also pledged to chip in to employees’ Trump Accounts.
More than four million parents and custodians have already created accounts for their children. And with Bank of New York Mellon Corporation and Robinhood recently tapped to run the program, Trump Accounts now appear poised to launch — on the Fourth of July, of course.
But in truth, like everything else Trump has emblazoned with his name, Trump Accounts are far from an act of unqualified benevolence.
What sounds like free money carries real financial risks, costs, and serious concerns for any society that calls itself a democracy. Instead of restoring or increasing funding to programs with a proven record of strengthening children’s long-term prospects, the administration has created a distraction that offers marginal benefit while widening the already inequitable income gap.
So why launch Trump Accounts at all? Perhaps, as Arthur MacEwan, University of Massachusetts Boston professor emeritus and cofounder of the economics nonprofit Dollars & Sense, suggests, “Trump Accounts seem to be a publicity stunt aimed at, in effect, an effort to buy votes.”
The design of Trump Accounts has inherent risks.
For example, unlike other child savings vehicles, such as a Roth IRA, a 529 education…
Auteur: Mary Sherman
