White House launches 'Trump accounts' for kids while the president rakes in unprecedented wealth via his office

**Christy Strawser** (0:00)
Welcome to On Deadline, your radio news from Audacy newsrooms across the country. I'm Christy Strawser, Audacy's managing editor of news. President Donald Trump kicked off the high point of summer with new so-called Trump accounts for families with kids.
Here's what you need to know about them from Adam and Jordana in Minneapolis.

**Adam** (0:19)
Okay, these Trump accounts that we're talking about refers to the sweeping proposal by the administration to create these government-backed personal tax advantage-saving investment accounts for American citizen. Basically, like any kid that is born, $1,000, an American child that is born, $1,000 goes into a nest egg for this kid.
And these Trump accounts, the child, again, wouldn't be starting at zero. It would start with personal financial backing. So the Trump accounts put $1,000 into the market, into an account that gets invested over time. Now, if a child does not touch that money, does not add to the account, does nothing, doesn't even know it exists, by the time that person is 55 years old, there will be $235,000 in that account for when they retire. If they did nothing with it, provided that the market was just a regular kind of average market.
I think even though they're called Trump accounts, I think this is a great idea. We know that Social Security, if Congress doesn't choose to find some new funds for it by 2038, Adam, almost when we're going to be ready for it, it's going to be reduced. Our benefit will be reduced by a minimum of 20 percent, possibly even more. So what do we do to fix the problem of people not having any savings of Social Security going completely bankrupt? You start these kind of accounts and you invest in our youth. Therefore, they have a little bit of a nest egg by the time they reach to 55 or if they want to access it by 18, they could certainly have $80,000 in there or $90,000 in there, and that could work toward a college degree, and they would have access to it at the age of 18 I think these are great ideas. What say you?

**Jordana** (2:19)
I mean, it sounds like free money. So I think many of us would say, well, yeah, why not?
And whether or not Donald Trump has anything to do with it, I really don't care. I want to know it because I don't care if his name is on it or not. If it's actually benefiting those people who it's going to benefit, then I'm absolutely all for it. There are so many things as a country that we fail at. A lot of the failure in whatever it is, healthcare, child care, housing, feeding people, a lot of what stands in our way often is the willingness to spend the money or the willingness to say just the hesitancy for us to say these are our tax dollars and are these really truly the best way to do things. And for me to come out and say absolutely, this is for sure better than other ways we could spend the money, I just don't know. It might be. It might be.
I just don't know. The thing that gives me pause about this is it's an opt-in situation where it's not like if you're born, boom, you automatically get that $1,000, you have to as a you hope that the parents are plugged in enough and in tune enough to say, I'm going to file for this and make sure my child gets this money. And again, is that are we playing favorites by doing that?

**Adam** (3:32)
Oh, really? So like only the smart parents are going to know about it.

**Jordana** (3:35)
So only the smart people or just the ones who are not necessarily smart just plugged in ones.

**Adam** (3:42)
I mean, this should be you get a social security card when you're born in the hospital. You know, this should be OK, here's your diaper that you're going home with. This is the kids are security number.
Here are some, you know, cooling packs for if you're sore. And here is the website for you to get free $1,000 that goes into your account. Like this should be if this is going to be an option for every child born in America, I guess it would be only for people born in hospitals because they can't really police other, you know, maybe home births. And maybe if you're a home birth, you're a very involved parent and you would know about this anyway. I don't know. But we can only do what we can do. And I think if it's an option at birth or even hey, sign right here and the money goes right into the account. So even the parents that are less interested in parenting, that didn't really want this kid or don't know how to be a parent or just not plugged in, their kids shouldn't have to suffer for that. So they'll have a little bit of a nest egg by the time they're 18, or by the time they're retired, they'll have some money to maybe buy their first house or whatever it is.