The Treasury Department announced on July 1, 2026, that all contributions to Trump Accounts will initially be invested in the State Street SPDR Portfolio S&P 500 ETF, a fund with an expense ratio of 0.02 percent. Eligible investments are restricted to low-cost index funds tracking the S&P 500 or similar equity indices comprising at least 90 percent U.S. companies, with a 10 basis point expense cap and no leverage. There is no bond option. There is no cash option. The accounts launch on July 4.
More than six million children have been signed up before the launch date. Every American child under 18 with a Social Security number is eligible. Babies born between January 1, 2025, and December 31, 2028, receive a one-time $1,000 contribution from the United States Treasury. Annual contributions are capped at $5,000 per child. Employer contributions are permitted up to $2,500 per year. No earned income is required. The Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation estimates the program will cost $15 billion by 2034.
The private money arrived before the public money. The Michael and Susan Dell Foundation committed $6.25 billion to deposit $250 in the accounts of 25 million children age ten and under in zip codes with median family incomes below $150,000. Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio pledged $75 million for 300,000 children in Connecticut. BlackRock will match the Treasury's $1,000 for children of its employees. State Street, the company that manages the default ETF, will match for its employees' children too.
These commitments are not gifts to children. They are purchases of the S&P 500 routed through children's accounts. The Dell Foundation's $6.25 billion will buy shares of Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Amazon, and 496 other companies, weighted by market capitalization. The philanthropy does not choose what to own. The index does.
The accounts are traditional IRAs designated under Section 530(a). The child owns the account. A custodian administers it until age 18. Before that age, withdrawals are generally prohibited. After 18, standard IRA rules apply: a 10 percent penalty plus income taxes on withdrawals before age 59½, with limited exceptions for education, a first home purchase, or disability. A dollar deposited for a child born in 2025 cannot leave without penalty until 2084. The capital enters the S&P 500 and stays there, compounding, for nearly sixty years.
Senator Ted Cruz conceived the accounts. They were initially called Invest America, then MAGA Accounts — a backronym for Money Accounts for Growth and Advancement — before the final rename to Trump Accounts as the One Big Beautiful Bill was finalized in the House. Every statement links the president's name to the performance of American equities. When the S&P 500 rises, Trump Accounts rise. When it falls, they fall. The brand and the benchmark are fused.
Senator Cory Booker first proposed baby bonds in 2018 that would have been managed by the Treasury Department and invested in government securities — the safest asset class available, backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. The conservative alternative chose the riskier instrument. Booker would have lent the government's money back to itself. Trump Accounts lend the government's money to corporations.
Passive index funds now hold approximately 55 percent of U.S. fund assets. ETFs attracted $1.2 trillion in net inflows in the first half of 2026, running 45 percent ahead of the prior year's record pace. Trump Accounts add another structural buyer to a market already dominated by structural buyers, routing every dollar through market-cap-weighted funds that buy more of whatever is already largest.
The endowment creates its own constituency. Millions of families will check an account bearing the president's name to learn whether their child's money grew. The political cost of a sustained decline is no longer abstract. It shows up, by name, in children's accounts. The S&P 500 is no longer just an index. It is a public endowment — branded, subsidized, and structured so that unwinding it would mean taking money from kids.