Built for the Next Generation: Young Adult Perspectives on Federal Early Wealth Building Policy
Hope Wollensack
Executive Director, GRO Fund
Jason Ewas
Associate Director, Lifelong Saving and Investing
About This Brief
530A Accounts, or Trump Accounts—federal early wealth building accounts that became law in July 2025 and that the U.S. Department of the Treasury is implementing this year—have recently brought increased attention and a broader range of perspectives to the field of early wealth building. With this increased focus on early wealth building, one constituency stood out as needing to have their voices continue to be heard: young adults.
With that in mind, the Georgia Resilience and Opportunity Fund (GRO Fund) and the Aspen Institute Financial Security Program (Aspen FSP), two organizations focused on centering people with lived experience in their work, partnered to host a two-hour, in-person roundtable of 10 young adults, ages 18-25, in July 2025 to learn their perspective on federal early wealth building.
Insights from that roundtable have informed our work over the last year. Given the implementation timeline of 530A Accounts and continued momentum on state and local Baby Bonds and other early wealth building programs, we decided we should elevate their unique perspectives here.
Why does this age group matter? In addition to being the age when people can access funds in early wealth building accounts for wealth-building purposes, this group is among the age cohort who may be parents or uncles or aunts or family friends of children who are eligible for a $1,000 deposit from the federal government in a 530A Account. In other words, these are the people who will access or open and potentially contribute to the accounts. Along with key design decisions that the federal government makes, they will help determine if any early wealth building account policy succeeds or fails.
This brief summarizes the roundtable discussion and aims to elevate the voices of young people. While naturally 530A Accounts were a major focal point of the discussion given the roundtable’s timing, the conversation also included other early wealth building policies such as Baby Bonds and Children’s Savings Accounts (CSAs).
This brief provides a summary of a roundtable discussion co-hosted by the Aspen Institute Financial Security Program and the Georgia Resilience and Opportunity Fund in July 2025 and is informed by additional research from both organizations following the roundtable. We are grateful to the young adults who participated in the roundtable and shared their insights with us.
This publication was funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. We thank them for their support but acknowledge that the findings and conclusions presented in this report are those of Aspen FSP alone, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Foundation or other participants in the research process.
Five Things We Heard About Making the Saver’s Match Work for 69 Million Workers
How State and Local Governments Can Advance Early Wealth Building for All
Lessons From Down Under: What Australia’s Retirement System Really Teaches Us About Trump Accounts and Social Security
2026 Aspen Leadership Forum on Retirement Savings
The Future of Advice: Going from Fragmented Help to Person-Centered Guidance
Trump IRAs Are Coming. Let’s Make Them Work for Those Who Need Them Most.
Lab Notes: 2025 Workers’ Wealth Lab
The World Is Watching: What Comes Next for 530A Accounts (“Trump Accounts”)
Trump Accounts are Law. Now What Comes Next Matters Most.
