A Champion of Baby Bonds, Pressley Has Urged Trump Admin. to Ensure New Child Savings Accounts Don’t Worsen Inequality

WASHINGTON – Today, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley (MA-07), a member of the House Financial Services Committee, issued a statement renewing her calls for the Trump Administration to ensure that Trump Accounts, the newly created child savings accounts, do not widen the wealth gap and worsen economic inequality. The Congresswoman’s statement comes after the Dell family committed $6.5 billion to help fund accounts for 25 million children across America.

Last week, Congresswoman Pressley, who has long championed Baby Bonds as a tool for closing the wealth gap, urged the IRS to develop regulations to alleviate the harm Trump Accounts would cause by expanding wealth inequality, ignoring poor and low-income families in urban and rural communities, and causing children born into rich families to disproportionately benefit while others continue to struggle.

“The Dell family’s investment in these new child savings accounts is meaningful—but economic justice cannot and must not depend on the benevolence of billionaires,” said Congresswoman Pressley in a statement today. “That’s why I continue to call on Secretary Bessent to issue equitable guidance to ensure Trump Accounts uplift our most vulnerable families and not leave these children behind. Every child deserves a chance to build wealth and opportunity—not just the wealthy few.”

A copy of the Congresswoman’s letter to Secretary Bessent is available here.

In a Washington Post op-ed published in June, Congresswoman Pressley and economist Darrick Hamilton urged Congress to reject Trump Accounts and instead embrace Baby Bonds to close the wealth gap and advance economic justice. In March 2023, Rep. Pressley and Senator Booker urged the Treasury Department’s advisory committee to study the merits of Baby Bonds and embrace them in its upcoming reports to the Treasury Department about ideas that could advance greater equity in the economy.

Rep. Pressley has consistently advocated for race-conscious policies to help close the racial wealth gap in America, uplift Black, brown, and other marginalized communities.

• Building on the legacy of Black women in the civil rights movement, Rep. Pressley led a historic resolution calling for a federal job guarantee.  
• In a House Financial Services Committee hearing, Congresswoman Pressley questioned Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on the issue of full employment and the Civil Rights history of the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate. Powell conceded, for the first time in Federal Reserve history and on the Congressional record, that the Fed alone cannot get the United States to full employment.
• Congresswoman Pressley, along with Senator Cory Booker, is the lead co-sponsor of the American Opportunity Accounts Act—also known as Baby Bonds—legislation that would create a federally-funded savings account for every American child in order to make economic opportunity a birthright for every child and help close the racial wealth gap.
• Rep. Pressley introduced the Equity in Government Act to codify racial equity across federal agencies and improve government services for underserved communities.
• Rep. Pressley has also called on the five largest banks in America to provide a detailed update on the racial equity commitments the institutions made following the murder of George Floyd in 2020.
• Rep. Pressley was also a leading voice in Congress urging President Biden to cancel student debt. Following years of advocacy by Rep. Pressley—in partnership with colleagues, borrowers, and advocates like the NAACP—the Biden-Harris Administration announced a historic plan to cancel student debt that stands to benefit over 40 million people.
• Congresswoman Pressley has also consistently sounded the alarm on the crisis of unemployment among Black women in America, and demanded the Federal Reserve take action.

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