«I think, long term, the flexibility is going to be something that needs to be worked out,» Eby said. «We don’t want the money to grow and then suddenly it’s diminished because it’s not used for an allowable reason.»
Daniel Hatcher, a law professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law and an expert on child welfare finances, put it plainly: «Overall, I think there can be benefits to [these] accounts, but there also needs to be more flexibility so that foster youth have access to the funds at the critical time when they are transitioning out of care.»
$6.25 billion in philanthropic pledges, but benefit caps create a new arithmetic problem
Philanthropic commitments are already flowing into the program. Michael Dell, founder of Dell Technologies, and his wife Susan pledged $6.25 billion to Trump Accounts, according to CNBC. Children born between 2016 and 2024 who live in a ZIP code where the median income is $150,000 or less could each receive $250.
Other pledges are being made at the state level. Ray Dalio, founder of investment firm Bridgewater Associates, and his wife Barbara committed $250 per qualifying child in Connecticut under the same income-based criteria. Brad Gerstner, CEO of Altimeter Capital and one of the architects of the Trump Accounts initiative, pledged $250 to qualifying children under age 5 in Indiana. Micron Technology also pledged $250 per account for children in communities where the memory chip maker operates.
For the roughly 27,000 foster children who receive Social Security survivor benefits or Supplemental Security Income, however, a separate arithmetic challenge emerges. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced on June 11 that states would be able to direct those federal benefits into Trump Accounts. The average monthly survivor benefit for a child under 18 is approximately $1,181, and the average SSI benefit among children under 18 is roughly $874 monthly.
Because survivor benefits deposited into a Trump Account count toward the $5,000 annual cap, any excess would need to be held in a separate account. No guidance has yet been released on how SSI would be treated within the Trump Account framework, leaving a critical gap in the rules for some of the most financially precarious children in the program.
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