On Wednesday at the Trump Accounts Summit, I witnessed something rare in modern politics: a bold policy vision that places the American family, not bureaucracy or Wall Street, at the center of our nation’s future prosperity.
As I walked into the historic Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium, famously named after a giant of American industry and our nation’s 49th U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, I saw not only high-powered business leaders and philanthropists, but I saw families.
The Trump Administration invited young families, which included my own. Strollers with babies, toddlers, and young children lined much of the room. I watched proudly alongside my husband and our three young sons as President Trump took the stage to tout a bold vision for the next generation of Americans.
In that moment, the symbolism wasn’t lost on me. Here we were, inside a building named after a titan of American banking, a remnant of the powerful captains of industry of the Gilded Age, discussing a policy designed to empower ordinary Americans to build wealth and stability across generations.
What’s being proposed is bold: a system of tax-advantaged personal savings accounts designed to empower ordinary families to save, invest, and build wealth over a lifetime. These aren’t just retirement accounts or education savings vehicles; they are a revolution in ownership.
For decades, the tools of generational wealth, compound interest, equity, and portfolio growth have been privileges largely reserved for the wealthy and well-connected. Trump Accounts change that. They democratize access to the same wealth-building tools that the elite have used to secure their children’s fortunes for generations.
For too many working and middle-class Americans, the idea of passing down wealth feels like a fantasy. Homeownership has become unreachable for many young families, student loan debt tops $1.6 trillion, and the cost of starting a family is at record highs. According to a recent Pew Research report, only 26 percent of Americans believe their children will be better off financially than their parents—a tragic commentary on how far our national confidence has fallen.
Meanwhile, marriage and birth rates decline year after year. The U.S. fertility rate now stands at 1.6 births per woman, well below replacement level. Behind those numbers lies a deeper anxiety—many young Americans simply don’t feel financially secure enough to start families. No civilization can survive if its citizens no longer believe raising the next generation is possible.
This is why Trump Accounts matter. They strike at the heart of both our economic and cultural malaise. They say to the American people: We trust you to build your own prosperity. We believe in the dignity of work, the sanctity of family, and the virtue of personal responsibility. These accounts would allow parents to save for their children’s future.
It’s a simple but transformative shift, from dependency to empowerment, from government redistribution to family investment. A system where a truck driver’s child, or a teacher’s child, or a single mother’s child, can have the same opportunity to grow wealth that only the elite once enjoyed. That’s not just good economics—it’s good for the fabric of the country. A society is only as strong as the families that compose it, and it’s due time the working-class families of America get a bite at the apple.
Trump Accounts are saying the government’s role is not to parent the family, but to trust and empower the family. It recognizes what conservatives have long known—that the true engine of prosperity is the household, not bureaucracy. When families own capital, the nation stabilizes.
Imagine a generation of Americans who can save early, invest smartly, and own something of their own. Imagine parents able to set aside funds for their children to use one day to buy their first home or start a business. That’s not a handout; it’s a restoration of the American inheritance.
Right now, 60 percent of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. The old “ladder of opportunity” is missing rungs. Trump Accounts are a blueprint for rebuilding it—one savings plan, one household, one child at a time.
What I felt at the Summit was hope. Hope that this new chapter of conservative economic thinking recognizes that prosperity should no longer be the privilege of the few. Hope that the future middle class will be one of dreamers, builders, and investors, not debtors. Hope that the American Dream, though battered, can once again be a dream for everyone willing to work for it.
Trump Accounts represent something revolutionary: a return to what worked. Faith in families. Confidence in personal responsibility. Commitment to generational strength. It’s a policy that recognizes that true wealth, the kind that lasts, isn’t measured in stocks and bonds alone, but in children who thrive, communities that endure, and a nation that builds a stronger tomorrow.
If the American Dream begins at home, then Trump Accounts may be the foundation upon which a new era of family prosperity, and national renewal, will be built.
Clare Ath (@clareanneath) is the co-founder and executive director of Vita et Terra, a conservative Catholic environmental nonprofit launching this spring that advocates for care for creation.