Trump Accounts’ Launch Tops Treasury Priorities

Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s administration is concentrating its retirement efforts on launching Trump Accounts and will then turn its attention to a broader initiative aimed at expanding retirement savings options for workers who lack access to workplace plans.

Appearing before the Senate Committee on Finance, Bessent described the forthcoming accounts, which launch in early July, as a cornerstone of Trump’s economic agenda. He argued that the accounts, also known as 530A accounts after the section of the Internal Revenue Code that created them, would expand participation in the financial markets and encourage long-term wealth accumulation among younger generations.

The accounts will create a traditional individual retirement account for minors, and a pilot program provides a one-time $1,000 gift from the federal government to U.S.-born children born between 2025 and 2028 who have a valid Social Security number.

“We are consumed with that,” Bessent said when asked about the administration’s timetable for developing recommendations to address gaps in retirement plan coverage. He said Department of the Treasury officials would focus on other retirement account proposals once the new program is up and running.

The exchange highlighted how the administration is placing Trump Accounts at the center of its savings and investment strategy. In prepared testimony, Bessent said nearly 6 million accounts had already been opened and that roughly 1.4 million children have qualified for a federal seed contribution. He characterized the program as an effort to broaden ownership of financial assets among Americans who have historically had limited exposure to stock market investments.

Republican senators pressed Bessent on what comes next. Senator Tim Scott, R-South Carolina, and Senator John Barrasso, R-Wyoming, pointed to the tens of millions of workers who do not participate in employer-sponsored retirement plans, including many independent contractors and self-employed Americans. Both lawmakers asked when the Treasury would deliver recommendations for expanding access to retirement savings vehicles.

Bessent said the administration views retirement access as a significant issue and indicated that officials are developing proposals involving IRAs for workers outside traditional employment arrangements. He suggested those efforts would build on the framework established by the president’s recent executive actions.

In April, Trump issued an executive order establishing TrumpIRA.gov, intended to link uncovered workers to the already-enacted Saver’s Match and serve as a national enrollment portal for people to set up IRAs. The Saver’s Match was established by the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022 and begins to take effect in January 2027.

The Senate hearing also touched on the future of Social Security. Senator Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, urged the administration to begin addressing the program’s long-term finances, noting projections that the trust fund faces depletion within the next decade. Bessent declined to outline a specific reform plan, but said the administration’s priority is preserving benefits while improving the nation’s fiscal position.

Social Security’s trust fund reserves will be exhausted by 2033 if action is not taken, after which benefits will be reduced to about 81% of scheduled amounts, the Social Security Administration has reported.

Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, suggested last month in remarks on a panel at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference, that Trump Accounts could become a path to individual accounts that would transform Social Security into a personal savings program.