The change has been long sought by economists and advocates who argued that self-selection would benefit wealthier families.
Page F113From§Eachthe supper edition — 7 October 2026
Treasury auto-enrolls 70 million children in investment accounts, then prods their parents to come claim them.
As it ran on the front
On September 1st, Georgetown University's Center for Children and Families filed the count: nearly 2.5 million children had lost Medicaid or CHIP coverage since January 2025, five states down more than 10 percent, Indiana down more than 23 percent. Twenty-eight days later, on September 29th, Treasury filed the next entry on the same calendar: new rules auto-enrolling more than 60 million additional children under 18 in Trump Accounts, tax-deferred investment accounts, with no signature required from any of their parents. Auto-enrollment began October 1st.
Read the two filings side by side and the reconciliation does itself. The account that 60 million children gained required none of that paperwork at all. One government program needs an application to keep. The other needs none to get.…
…(cont) By Wednesday the account had a second number to sit beside the first. The Washington Examiner reported Trump Accounts expanding by more than 70 million, up from the 8 million parents had actually opened themselves since July. That is the self-selection gap, hon, and it is the whole case against calling this account universal: the parents who went and opened one before Treasury did it for them are the parents who already know what a "diversified investment vehicle" is and already have someone to call about it.
Which is why the President stood in the Oval Office on Wednesday and asked parents to go claim an account Treasury had already given their children, the same day he left for a rally in San Antonio. The Washington Post's framing of that ask is the quiet part of this story: the policy has been "long sought by economists and advocates who argued self-selection would benefit wealthier families." Self-selection is not a flaw in the design. It is the design.
Twenty-eight days apart, filed by the same administration: one entry removed coverage from 2.5 million children through a form their families had to file and sometimes couldn't finish in time. The other entry opened accounts for 60 million more children through a form no one had to file at all. The families with the accountant will find the second form anyway. The point was never that they'd need to.
“They slap sixty million kids' names on investment accounts and call it universal, but universal only means something if you know to go open the envelope — the families with an accountant already had the account before Treasury auto-opened it. Same year, 2.5 million kids got bounced off Medicaid for not filing the right form fast enough. That's the trick: paperwork sinks your kid's health coverage, paperwork's optional for your kid's stock portfolio.”
“This is the biggest expansion of family wealth-building in the country's history — every child gets a stake in the market from birth, zero burden, zero application. I mean, there's no application, that's the whole — well, now we're asking parents to go claim it, which, if you think about it, is kind of — did I say that? That's not what I meant.”
Earlier in this story
- Fed logs third consecutive month in which a rate hike is likely and inflation has not moved By Ruth · the early bird edition, 7 October 2026
- Law that pushed food aid to a 17-year low returns to cut benefits for millions still enrolled By Ruth · the matinee edition, 7 October 2026
The receipts
President Trump on Wednesday celebrated the auto-enrollment of millions of children in Trump Accounts under new rules released last week. He's now on his way to San Antonio, where he'll appear in a campaign rally with Senate candidate Ken Paxton and House candidate Carlos De La Cruz. Paxton's opponent, James Talarico, is taking time…
President Trump took questions from reporters at the Oval Office on Wednesday, touching on a wide range of topics, including the midterm elections, mass migration in Europe and more.
SNAP cut by $187 billion - the largest cut in the program's history; SNAP feeds one in five American children Congressional Budget Office estimate, via CBPP SNAP tracker
Trump expands Trump Accounts access: Here’s how you can claim it on behalf of your childPresident Donald Trump is expanding Trump Accounts by more than 70 million, an increase from the 8 million opened since July. Trump Accounts are tax-deferred investment savings accounts designed to provide children with financial investments. The money is invested into a “diversified investment vehicle”
· Treasury confirms plan to auto-enroll millions of children in Trump accounts from the morgue, 29 Sep 2026
· Treasury to auto-enroll up to 60 million children in Trump Accounts from the morgue, 30 Sep 2026
· Nearly 2.5 Million Children Have Lost Medicaid and CHIP—So Far—During Trump’s Second Term from the morgue, 1 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.