A pair of academic researchers want the Trump administration to automate “Trump Accounts,” so that every baby born between 2025 and 2028 automatically receives $1,000 in retirement savings.
Roughly 6.6 million American children are enrolled in the new federal retirement savings program, and 1.4 million newborns are on track to receive $1,000 contributions from the government, the Treasury Department reported on May 8.
Those families opted into the program ahead of its July 4 launch, filing the new IRS Form 4547 at the trumpaccounts.gov website or with their 2025 tax returns.
But if enrollment were automatic, the researchers say, the Trump Accounts program could reach 73 million American children.
“I think it looks like a missed opportunity,” said Stephen Roll, an assistant professor in the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. “These accounts have the potential to be transformative in how we help people build wealth in this country.”
Roll makes a case for automating Trump Accounts in a May 4 opinion piece in The Washington Post, co-authored with fellow WashU scholar Jin Huang.
The researchers said the Treasury Department is aware of their proposal.
“The U.S. Treasury Department is committed to maximizing the impact of Trump Accounts, driving sign-ups for all eligible children, and achieving our goal of having every American child own a Trump Account,” the agency said in a statement.
What Are ‘Trump Accounts’?
The program promises to deposit $1,000 into retirement savings accounts for every child born during the four years of Donald Trump’s second presidential term: an IRA for kids, essentially.
American children born before 2025 and under 18 are also eligible for Trump Accounts, but with no seed money from the federal government.
The program is tailored to teach children about saving and investing, and to encourage children and their families to build wealth for adulthood and retirement.
Critics have warned that Trump Accounts might wind up as an expensive giveaway to the rich, adopted by parents who already have ample investments as a means to pad their portfolios.
Past research has shown that lower-income Americans are less likely to participate in retirement savings. Only about half of workers with annual incomes between $15,000 and $30,000 participate in Vanguard 401(k) programs, for example, compared with 95% of workers earning more than $150,000.
“Without autoenrollment, without making sure that our lowest-income families get their accounts open and get their thousand dollars, there’s a risk that this program becomes another tax subsidy that mostly benefits wealthy families,” said Madeline Brown, a senior policy associate at the nonpartisan Urban Institute.
Why Does Auto-Enrollment Matter?
Automatic enrollment is widely viewed as the ideal model for retirement savings programs, because potential savers are more likely to participate if they must make an effort to opt out.
Twenty states have adopted auto-IRA programs, according to the AARP, as a safety net for employees who lack access to retirement savings. The state programs offer retirement savings to those workers with automatic enrollment.
Under federal law, starting in 2025, most new 401(k) plans had to automatically enroll employees rather than leave the decision to them.
In their op-ed piece, the WashU researchers cite the Alfond Grant program in Maine, which offers parents $500 grants for newborn children. When the program switched from optional to automatic enrollment, participation rose from 40% to 100%.
“I think that’s the important message here: We know how to do this,” said Huang, a social policy professor at the Brown School.
Roughly 3.6 million Americans were born in 2025, based on CDC data. Of that group, 1.4 million are now registered for Trump Accounts.
“So, we need to understand, who are those two-thirds of kids who didn’t claim their $1,000,” said Brown of the Urban Institute.
Why Aren’t More People Claiming Trump Accounts?
The Trump Accounts website advertises the signup process as relatively simple. You file Form 4547, a one-page document that asks for dates of birth, Social Security numbers and other basic information. After you submit the form, the site instructs, you’ll be contacted with instructions on how to finish setting up the account.
But tax forms are seldom easy, and this one is new.
“It’s a new and unfamiliar thing that people may just not have the knowledge to engage with,” Roll said. “The more paperwork you load on folks, the more people you are likely to lose in the process.”
Some new parents may not know Trump Accounts exist. Anyone filing a 2025 tax return had an opportunity to file a Form 4547, but millions of low-income Americans don’t file tax returns.
“The decision to link enrollment in this program primarily to tax filing leaves out children who will need it most,” Brown said.
Newborns aren’t the only ones who might miss out on free retirement savings.
On top of the $1,000 federal contributions, philanthropists Michael and Susan Dell pledged $250 to each of the first 25 million Trump Account applicants who are ages 10 or under, were born before 2025, and live in ZIP codes with median incomes under $150,000.
Many other pledges have poured in from philanthropists and corporate America, potentially expanding the program’s reach.
It might sound implausible that anyone would pass up free retirement savings. But small-value retirement accounts routinely slip through the cracks, lost or forgotten by people who change jobs.
“Our experience in the private sector with very small accounts is that a significant percent of the population never connects with their accounts,” said J. Spencer Williams, founder and CEO of the Retirement Clearinghouse, a financial technology firm. “You end up with these sort of stranded, orphan accounts.”
Trump Accounts won’t necessarily stay small. The program’s website estimates that a $1,000 contribution will grow to $6,000 by the time the newborn turns 18, even without additional contributions. By age 55, it will reach $243,000.
“We’re all paying for these accounts,” through tax dollars, said Monique Morrissey, a senior economist at the progressive Economic Policy Institute. “So, even if you don’t like the idea of a Trump Account, you should take advantage of it.”
