“We’re supportive of the idea of promoting wealth building among children and families and of providing cash-building opportunities for children and families. Our nation has a widening wealth gap, and having access to wealth is really important for economic opportunities in childhood and adolescence and later in life. Unfortunately, given how Trump accounts are designed, we don’t think this program will effectively reduce the wealth gap or inequality in our country. In fact, we think it’s going to widen the wealth inequality that already exists,” she says.

To that, her colleague Jesse Fairbanks, policy analyst on the public benefits justice team at CLASP, adds, “Even if a philanthropic donor or a nonprofit wanted to invest in families with low income, they would have to use less than ideal geographic measures to do so.”

The Dell donations, for example, use median annual income to identify ZIP codes where the contributions will be focused. But some low-income families may live in higher-income ZIP codes and be excluded.

“In general, we’ve measured a chilling effect in different public benefit programs as there’s been more of a crackdown on immigrants in our country,” Burnside says. “A new data-sharing agreement between the Department of Homeland Security and the IRS is making its way through the courts right now, and I imagine that’s going to make a lot of families concerned about how they’re interacting with the Department of Treasury. It means that there may be eligible families who don’t feel comfortable accessing the support that could otherwise give additional money to their children.”

The full article in Crain’s Chicago Business is available here.