One government program that will actually help your kid

Skip to content

The views expressed by contributors are their own and not the view of The Hill

Opening a savings account for my 11 month-old son was easier than opening one for myself. And his was funded with a free $1,000 to start.

As a statistician, I have spent much of my career telling people that government programs almost never work as advertised. The incentives are always wrong, the paperwork is overwhelming, and the data, viewed properly, hardly ever backs up the press releases.

This means that when I say that the new Trump Accounts are the rare exception, I really mean it.

Let’s even start with the most overlooked issue: the unbelievably maddening experience it is to usually deal with the federal government.

Have you ever actually tried to call anyone? I spent days upon days trying to prove my identity to the IRS after I got married and changed my last name. I have filled out forms in triplicate to pay taxes (yes, to give them money) I have already overpaid, then waited months for a refund that should have taken days.

I know someone who had a huge five-figure refund direct-deposited into his bank account — money that he knew was not rightfully his and he had not asked for on his tax return. He waited hours to get someone on the phone at the IRS so that he could figure out how to give the money back without creating new tax consequences to himself. He was given contradictory instructions. Somehow, after a few anxious weeks, it all worked out — government at its finest.

Every interaction with the federal government, in my experience, is a hoop to jump through. Usually there are several hoops, even when the goal is just to give the government your own money.

So, when I sat down to open a Trump Account for our son, I braced myself for pain and expected to give up. I expected the portal to crash or the form to demand information I don’t have. I decided ahead of time to give it an hour and really thought there was no chance I was going to actually succeed.

But it took me about 5 minutes. It was, without any exaggeration, the easiest experience I have ever had with any fiscal system. No triplicate forms, no waiting on hold for customer service —I just needed our son’s information and some of my own, and it was done.

As of today, beyond the free $1,000 that deposited in his account a week ago, he is up $6.94. This number, although it may not sound like a lot, is significant in a way far more important than the ease of signing up. Our son is an infant and has never worked a minute in his life. He has no concept of the stock market, yet he already has an ownership stake in the American economy whose interest is compounding while he takes a bath.

I have written many times before about the power of exponential growth. A number that looks small on day one can be enormous by day sixty, just because it is invested and left alone, allowed to compound uninterrupted.

Our son’s $1,000 seed money — and that of anyone else’s child born between 2025 and 2028 in the U.S. — invested in a broad-based, low-risk index fund has 18 years to compound before he is even allowed to touch it. By the time he turns 18, assuming that neither we nor his grandparents contribute a dime and the funds grow at the historic 10 percent annual S&P 500 average, it will have increased six-fold. If he leaves the account alone until he turns 65, under the same assumptions, it will be worth more than 600 times what he started with — $665,000, to be precise. All that, just for being born in the U.S. during the four years of the second Trump presidency.

Critics might argue that this is unfair — that a family that can afford to contribute the annual maximum of $5,000 per year will accumulate significantly more than a family that cannot. That is true — in fact, contributing and investing just $100 per month for 65 years under those assumptions will result in an account worth more than $8.6 million, 99 percent of it coming from appreciation.

But who cares? Even for those who cannot afford regular contributions to their children’s future, this account is free money. Don’t look the gift horse in the mouth — this is more than half a million dollars you never would have had in the first place.

Moreover, that argument is a terrific inducement to encourage employer matches and philanthropic matches or contributions for children from less affluent families.

The Trump Account is an incredible idea. Even more incredible is that it is working. Our son has his account, it is growing, and it took me all of 5 minutes to set up. This is the first time I remember dealing with the federal government felt like it was actually built to help me — or more to the point, to help our son.

He will not remember signing up, and he will not remember the $6.94. But if the stock market does what it does, he will be the beneficiary of a government program that truly gave him, along with any other child born in the U.S. between 2025 and 2028, a true head start.

Liberty Vittert Capito is a Professor at Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis.

Tags

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.