releases: https://pressley.house.gov/2026/09/02/pressley-in-hearing-trump-accounts-fail-at-closing-wealth-gap-and-addressing-affordability-crisis/
Data license: MIT · Data source: dwillis/congress-press
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| https://pressley.house.gov/2026/09/02/pressley-in-hearing-trump-accounts-fail-at-closing-wealth-gap-and-addressing-affordability-crisis/ | Pressley in Hearing: Trump Accounts Fail at Closing Wealth Gap and Addressing Affordability Crisis | 2026-09-02 | 2026 | 2026-09 | Democrat | House | MA | Ayanna Pressley | P000617 | pressley.house.gov | pressley | https://pressley.house.gov/news/ | scraper | Transcript: Rep. Pressley Questions Experts on Baby Bonds and Trump Accounts House Financial Services Committee September 2, 2026 REP. PRESSLEY: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I represent the Massachusetts 7th Congressional District, beautiful, diverse district, also deeply unequal. In fact, in a three-mile radius from Cambridge, home to Harvard and MIT, to Roxbury’s Nubian Square, the Blackest part of my district, life expectancy drops by 23 years, and median household income by $50,000. A new report by the Boston Federal Reserve finds that Black families have $7,800 in net wealth, and on average, compared to white families who have an average $549,000 in median net wealth. Over a third of the people in my state cannot cover a $400 emergency, and over a third of the people in Boston, my district, have zero retirement savings. My constituents sent me to Congress, and I ran to confront these disparities head-on and to close the racial wealth gap. That’s why I was happy to partner with our witness today, Dr. Hamilton, and Senator Booker, to introduce the American Opportunity Accounts Act to create a federal baby bonds program. Now, Trump took this idea, entitled it after himself—he likes to name everything after himself—Trump accounts, and unfortunately watered it down so that the benefits are no longer targeted to the communities who need it most. What was once a bold proposal to ensure that every child, regardless of geography, race, and family income, could prosper is ostensibly now just a tax haven for Trump and his cronies, but we can fix this. Dr. Hamilton, currently, parents of newborns and young kids have to apply to set up a Trump Account, but our bill for Baby Bonds would allow for automatic enrollment. Which approach is better for actually helping working families and investing in all of our children? DR. DARRICK HAMILTON: Without a doubt, having access more universal should be the point. REP. PRESSLEY: Okay, Dr. Hamilton, what about the fact that Trump Accounts gives a one-time payment of $1,000 to rich and poor children equally, rather than our ongoing approach of investments to our most vulnerable babies, does that make economic sense for addressing intergenerational poverty? DR. HAMILTON: It does not. It becomes inflationary, and then here’s the bigger point: the main mechanism to grow the Trump Accounts is a tax-preferred savings mechanism for those people with resources to save in the first place. It ignores the fact that we have an affordability crisis, and the reasons that parents don’t offer resources to their children isn’t a lack of love—it’s a lack of resource. REP. PRESSLEY: Would it be fair to say that the very gaps that we aim to close could be deepened? DR. HAMILTON: They will grow. They will grow. That’s right. And unfortunately, it’s part of a pattern in the ways in which we use our tax code in general. We subsidize the savings of people that have savings to begin with. One quick statistic is that 80% of Americans don’t engage in active savings, again, not because they’re financially illiterate. They don’t have resources to save. The ways in which they grow their wealth is passively, which is why you have that great bill to promote an authentic Baby Bonds program. REP. PRESSLEY: Thank you, Dr. Hamilton. Trump Accounts also punish low-income households by actually kicking them off of public benefits, but our Baby Bonds bill would ensure these assets don’t count against eligibility. I’m losing my time here, but why should the Trump Administration adopt our approach? DR. HAMILTON: Well, it is correct because it is progressively seeding resources so that we can offer everybody the access to wealth to grow their account. The real quick good news is that we have a new interest in now seeding intergenerational mobility for all our people, so we can get it right. REP. PRESSLEY: Thank you, Doctor. Every child deserves an opportunity to grow and thrive and prosper, but our economy is stacked in favor of the ultra-rich. Trump Accounts, as currently implemented, actually makes the problem worse, and that’s what we would expect from an Administration that is getting richer while working families by the hour are getting poorer. So I am pushing for the adoption of our Baby Bonds bill, the American Opportunity Accounts Act. We need real investments to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty, close the racial wealth gap, and create an economy that works for everyone. | 1 | 2026-09-03T09:29:33Z | 2026-09-03T09:31:32Z |