The Aspen Institute

Since 2005, the United Kingdom has given every child born on or after September 1, 2002, a Child Trust Fund (CTF) – an investment account for building the savings capacities of children and families as well as for giving all children a financial asset to fund their transition to adult life. The IFS proposal for child accounts in the United States is modeled after this public-private sector partnership. Written in collaboration with the Institute for Public Policy Research in the U.K., this issue brief – an abbreviated version of a forthcoming paper — looks at the early results of the U.K.’s program and examines some of the lessons that the U.S. can learn as it considers its own initiative.