Trump Accounts Auto-Enrolled 60 Million-Plus Children; Donated Stock Comes With Strings
The Treasury Department has created Trump Accounts for every eligible child, automatically enrolling more than 60 million of them, PBS NewsHour reports. The expansion also came with changes to how the program works. The rule worth noticing: donors can now give individual stocks, and families cannot choose or reject them — and the shares must be kept for five years. An account holding one company's stock, picked by whoever made the donation and locked in for half a decade, is a different instrument from a plain savings pot. Whether that turns out to be generous or risky depends on what ends up in the account, which is precisely the part the family doesn't control. PBS's Amna Nawaz discussed the changes with Wall Street Journal reporter Richard Rubin.
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The missing veto is the striking part. A child's account can end up holding a single company's shares chosen by someone else, and the household has no way to decline.
A five-year lock-up is at least a legible rule — no churn, no quick flip. Pairing five years of no exit with no say over the asset is the combination that's hard to justify.