Thank you. Good afternoon. Thank you for welcoming me this afternoon, Secretary Bassingthwaighte. Since the earliest days of our republic, the Treasury has stood for America's financial credibility and stability. This very building is a monument of our confidence in the American experiment. Today, we are adding another important layer to the Treasury Department's foundation, economic stewardship. For the first time, children in foster care will have access to a dedicated savings and investment vehicle, Fostering the Future accounts. Fostering the Future accounts give foster children the same chance for asset ownership and long-term wealth building as every other American child.
By investing in our foster youth now, we help strengthen America's workforce, communities, and economic future. Ownership turns the principle of individual liberty into sustainable reality. For children in foster care, this is especially important. America can offer services, help, and protection, but real freedom means being able to make independent choices about your own future. Property ownership helps make that possible. When they turn 18, foster youth will be able to access the assets they own through Fostering the Future accounts. This will give them a foundation for independence and opportunity. For Fostering the Future youth, empowerment comes through ownership. This includes ownership of knowledge through education and now ownership through savings and investment accounts. Education and savings accounts are the first steps toward personal independence. Fostering the Future accounts help create the conditions where liberty can flourish. Success is not about how many benefits a person receives, but rather about how much independence they achieve. Starting today, the Treasury will let state child welfare agencies and foster youth representatives set up Fostering the Future accounts for children in foster care.
We already have measurable results. 23 governors have pledged to set up Fostering the Future accounts in their states. Including Governor Little from Idaho, who is here with us today. Thank you, Governor.
Now is the time for everyone to act. All 50 states should pledge to protect America's foster youth. Let's elevate America's children above politics. I urge every governor and business leader in America to help fund these accounts. Together, we can make sure foster youth enter adulthood with assets, opportunity, and a stronger path to independence. This is a historic moment for our nation.
We should aspire to raise a generation of builders, creators, entrepreneurs, and leaders whose futures are shaped by their ambition, not their circumstances. A strong education and financial assets will give them tools for a lifetime. Thank you.
Please join me one more time in thanking the First Lady for those thoughtful remarks.
Fostering the Future is the latest expression of her long-standing work on behalf of America's children. And we at Treasury are grateful that Mrs. Trump has given generously of her leadership to the most important benefit for young people since the GI Bill. Through the leadership of First Lady Melania Trump and her Fostering the Future initiative, children and youth in foster care now have a pathway to benefit from Trump accounts. Within the foster care community, these Fostering the Future accounts, powered by Trump accounts, will advance Mrs. Trump's commitment to helping youth in foster care build a stronger future.
Of course, Trump accounts are a historic new savings tool to democratize the benefits of private ownership and compound growth. Every American child born between January 2025 and December 2028 is eligible to receive a $1,000 seed contribution from Treasury. Assuming historical growth rates continue, that single deposit in an index fund should grow to at least half a million dollars by the age of retirement, demonstrating that assets of life-changing scale can begin with small steps. But as we began to develop Trump accounts, the First Lady emphasized that foster youth face difficulties that few others do. She noted that it is not enough for this program to function seamlessly for some. That the children who stand to benefit most from the Trump accounts must not encounter any barriers in accessing them. So, today, because of the First Lady's leadership, we are embedding foster youth into the fabric of this program from the outset.
When Trump accounts launch on July 4th, every eligible child in America will be able to participate, including those for whom the state serves as a legal guardian. States can also help foster youth to accelerate their gains by directing survivor and SSI benefits into their Trump accounts. And at every step, Treasury will provide expert guidance to child welfare agencies through a dedicated support line. Now, as we begin to enroll eligible foster youth across the country, I especially want to recognize Governor Jeff Landry for his leadership. Our goal is to work toward full participation from all 50 states. And I encourage every local welfare agency to follow Louisiana's example by looking beyond a child's present circumstances to invest in their potential. By affirming that the child born into adversity possesses equal worth as a child born into abundance. Of course, those convictions have long animated the First Lady's Be Best Fostering the Future campaign. Now, I'm delighted to see Mrs. Trump bring that same focus to the more than 330,000 young people who live in foster care. One in five of whom will become homeless after aging out of the system while only half will obtain gainful employment by the time they turn 24. This will be a game-changer. Those outcomes are unsettling, but today we refuse to accept them as inevitable. Trump accounts will build long-term financial security for millions of children. And for foster youth in particular, the program will ensure that their futures are shaped more by the possibilities rather than by the circumstances behind them.
Now, there is a fitting historical symmetry in making today's announcement here at the Treasury building. Of course, before he became America's first and most iconic Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton was an orphan, sustained by little more than a belief that his origins need not define his fate. An indigent boy from the Caribbean could in fact become the man who made modern America. And along the way, Hamilton knew what it was like to come of age without the anchor of a stable home. Yet, it was his wife who committed herself to the cause of foster children. Eliza Hamilton married one orphan, raised another, and then established New York's first private orphanage. I believe she did so because of an idea that remains as relevant in our time as it was two centuries ago in hers. That we cannot measure a person's value by the conditions of their birth or their upbringing. America was founded on that premise. No other nation dared stake its identity on the distance a citizen could travel from the place where they started. In fact, over the sweep of human civilization, the arc of a life was largely fixed before it even began. In the old world, outcomes were predetermined and mobility foreclosed. But today, we meet a remarkable moment in the life of a nation that has never attached greatness to the ease of beginnings. On the eve of America's 250th anniversary, we are demonstrating to foster youth that one's birth is not binding and where they begin need bear no resemblance to what they can become. Today, in the place where Hamilton's legacy surrounds us, we are extending the reach of this institution to the young people his wife devoted herself to defending. We are affirming that the American dream belongs to every child and because of the President and Mrs. Trump, through her Fostering the Future initiative, we are equipping more children to claim their rightful share of it. So, thank you all once again for joining us and being part of this historic occasion. I look forward to the launch of the next chapter of Fostering the Future and Trump accounts in the coming weeks and to the futures that will take shape alongside them in the years ahead. Thank you very much.
