The biggest charitable donation made on this GivingTuesday was $6.25bn, by computing billionaire Michael Dell and his wife, Susan. During a White House ceremony, the couple pledged nearly 4% of their total fortune to 25 million children aged 10 and under in the newly created “Invest America” personal savings accounts, worth an initial $250 each.
Although the US Treasury calls them “Trump accounts” – hence the Dells making their announcement with the president – the Invest America initiative is actually the result of a rare bipartisan effort by the current Congress, led by Democrats including senator Cory Booker, as well as Republicans. Their legislation allocated government dollars to an account for each child born on or after 1 January this year; the Dell donation will seed accounts for children born up to 10 years earlier. The Dells called on family members, companies and philanthropists to help top up these tax-free accounts.
This initiative is inspired, in part, by the child trust fund “baby bonds” created in the UK by Gordon Brown in 2002 – and sadly scrapped in 2010 by the coalition government. Unlike baby bonds, Invest America accounts are invested in equities, through a low-cost index fund, which gives them more chance of growing the initial money into a substantial nest egg with which to enter adulthood by the time they become accessible on the holder’s 18th birthday.
Announcing the donation, Michael Dell talked up the role these accounts could play in educating children about how the economy works and why they have a stake in making the economy stronger.
He recalled how being given a bank account when he was a kid helped him to become a successful entrepreneur. But even if this were just another way to curry favour with the president, how much better to do it by investing in children than by helping Trump to finance his new ballroom.
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