Trump accounts could grow to $50,000 or ‘very substantially more,’ president says

The Trump administration has framed its new investment account, Trump accounts, as an early wealth-building tool for children — one that officials have said could make your kid a millionaire by their late 20s.

But financial advisors and policy experts say the numbers depend on annual contributions and investment performance, among other factors.

“As parents, if we make maximum contributions to our child’s Trump account, the projected value will be nearly $1.1 million by the time they are 28 years old,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Jan. 28 at the Trump Accounts Summit in Washington, D.C.

Later that day, President Donald Trump told summit attendees that “with every modest contribution, Trump accounts should reach at least $50,000 in value” by age 18 and could be “very substantially more than that.”

“With slightly greater contributions, the typical account will grow to $100,000, $200,000 and can even grow up to past $300,000 per child,” he said.

Other politicians and speakers tossed out additional projections throughout the event.

Projections ‘greatly overstate’ likely payoff

The tax-deferred Trump accounts, also known as 530A accounts, include a $1,000 contribution from the U.S. Department of the Treasury for kids born between 2025 and 2028.

A growing number of companies have pledged to match the Treasury’s $1,000 seed money for children of employees, and philanthropists in multiple states have committed to additional gifts for certain qualifying families.

TrumpAccounts.gov projects that accounts could grow to $6,000 by age 18, $15,000 by age 27 or $243,000 by age 55, assuming the initial $1,000 Treasury deposit and no further contributions. This estimate is based on the S&P 500 historical annual average return of over 10%.

However, these are “unduly optimistic assumptions” about future stock market returns without adjusting for inflation or taxes, Alan Viard, senior fellow emeritus at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, wrote in a Jan. 23 report.

“The administration’s projections greatly overstate the accounts’ likely payoff,” he wrote.

White House spokesman Kush Desai told CNBC in an email that many economists inaccurately predicted “economic catastrophe” under Trump.

“Economists who couldn’t see one year into the future need to have the humility to admit that they probably can’t predict 28-plus years of compound growth that a generation of American children will enjoy thanks to Trump Accounts,” Desai said.