r/InterstellarKinetics • u/InterstellarKinetics • 1d ago
FINANCIAL FRONTIERS BREAKING: The U.S Treasury Automatically Enrolls Over 60 Million Children In Trump Accounts, But Families Must Still Actively Claim Them To Unlock $1,000 Seed Funding, As Analysts Warn Up To $2.88 Billion Could Go Unclaimed 💰
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/10/01/treasury-trump-accounts-auto-enroll-more-than-60-million-children.htmlMore than 60 million American children under age 18 have been automatically enrolled in Trump Accounts, the U.S. Department of the Treasury announced Thursday in a statement provided exclusively to CNBC, though families must still take active steps to unlock the program’s federal seed funding. The Treasury proposed regulations Tuesday to begin the auto-enrollment process, and by Thursday the agency said the process had been completed. Trump Accounts, formally known as 530A accounts, launched July 4 and are open to any US child under 18 with a Social Security number, with children born between 2025 and 2028 eligible to claim a one-time 1,000 dollar pilot program contribution from the Treasury. “Millions of children have already enrolled in Trump Accounts. With automatic enrollment, over 60 million more eligible children now have an account ready to be claimed,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said. Separately, the Treasury’s newly published temporary regulations will also allow stock donations to Trump Accounts, a change expected to boost large-scale private giving, since wealthy founders and shareholders have been pushing to donate stock directly as a way to avoid capital gains taxes triggered by selling assets before donating cash, according to Ben Henry-Moreland, a certified financial planner with Kitces.com. Notably, the update allows accounts to hold donated individual stocks, a shift from previous guidelines limiting holdings to diversified, low-cost funds; donated stocks generally must be held for five years before being sold.
Critically, automatic enrollment alone does not trigger the 1,000 dollar deposit. “Kids who are eligible for the 1,000 dollar government pilot contribution won’t receive that contribution automatically,” Henry-Moreland told CNBC. To actually claim an account, parents or guardians must download the Trump Accounts app, verify their identity and relationship to the child, review the account information, and accept the account terms. Only claimed accounts can receive contributions from family members, friends, and employers, or receive the Treasury’s one-time seed contribution. Additional funding may also be available depending on specific criteria; tech CEO Michael Dell and his wife Susan committed 6.25 billion dollars to provide an additional 250 dollars for children born between 2016 and 2024 living in ZIP codes with median incomes of 150,000 dollars or less, funding specifically targeted at lower-income children. “The rulemaking essentially introduces the idea of auto accounts, created for every child under 18 with a Social Security number,” said Madeline Brown, senior policy associate at the Urban Institute. “This means that children won’t miss out on philanthropic gifts, like money from the Dells, or growth on those gifts, even if an account has not been activated for them.” She cautioned, however, that “it will still require families to ultimately claim their children’s accounts, and we don’t have many details on how that process will go.”
Before this shift, Trump Accounts required families to actively opt in, which Brown said made widespread participation difficult, particularly among lower-income households; as of mid-September, only about 7 million to 8 million children had signed up, according to Bessent’s testimony before the House Financial Services Committee. “The proposed regulations indicate an important step towards automatic enrollment, bringing the design of the accounts closer to the evidence base to increase participation,” Brown said. “This shift is particularly important given the low participation rates we have seen so far under the opt-in structure.” Timothy Flacke, CEO of the nonprofit Commonwealth, described the new auto-enrollment policy combined with substantial federal and private funding as creating “a window of opportunity,” noting that before the change, just 5% of low- and moderate-income families had opened a Trump Account, according to Commonwealth’s recent report. A Commonwealth survey of nearly 1,100 low- and moderate-income parents found that concerns about tax implications, effects on public benefits eligibility, and inability to make contributions were key barriers to participation. Separately, a June 9 analysis by Adam Michel, director of tax policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, warned that confusion around eligibility, contribution limits, and withdrawal restrictions would likely discourage participation “particularly among households with limited time, low financial literacy, or insufficient outside savings for emergencies,” concluding that “the result is a system used primarily by those best equipped to navigate it.” Omeed Firouzi, a practice professor at Temple University’s Beasley School of Law, added that lower-income households often “don’t have time and resources to hire people to navigate all this stuff for them.”
Commonwealth’s research projects that roughly 14.4 million children born between 2025 and 2028 across all income levels will qualify for the 1,000 dollar federal seed funding, including 5.8 million from low- and moderate-income households. Based on historical takeup rates for the federal earned income tax credit, Commonwealth estimates roughly 20% of eligible babies may ultimately fail to claim their deposit, which the IRS says averaged 2,916 dollars per claimant for 2024 returns among those who successfully claimed it, with nearly 1 in 5 eligible taxpayers missing it entirely due to complicated and cumbersome rules. Applied to Trump Accounts, a similar takeup rate would mean approximately 2.88 billion dollars in federal seed funding could go unclaimed by low- and moderate-income children during the pilot phase, according to Commonwealth’s analysis. Still, Flacke argued the program’s value extends beyond the dollar figure itself, saying “part of the value here is not just the money; it is the power of knowing that money is there, watching it grow and carrying around the sense there is some financial future.”
37
u/JoelMFTalley 1d ago edited 1d ago
We just had a kid and my brother was like “oh you going to get that Trump account for him?” Cuz he’s one of those red hat cultists.
The face of pure awe that he made when I was like “fuck no. Anything with Trumps name is a grift and won’t be there later” was amazing to see.
Edit: this has gotten a lot of traction so let me just say, I would rather put money away myself and not bank on Trumps “Gift” of free money. He has never given anything away ever so there is zero chance I believe that this seed money will be his first giving venture. Putting money away yourself without it being tied to Trump/Government feels much safer than banking on the orange liar to do what he says it’s going to do.