By Kyle Mathis
What if the 400 richest households in America copied Michael and Susan Dell’s pledge? What if a small fraction of their combined $6.6 trillion of wealth were used to seed a capital account for every American child under ten?
This is not a charity question. It is a capacity question. It is a way of asking what would happen if a country built stability instead of trying to repair instability after the fact. Start with the simple math. A 4.5 percent pledge (the same percentage of wealth the Dell’s have donated) from the 400 richest households generates about $297 billion. That is enough to give roughly 25 million children a one-time seed of $12,000 each, placed into strictly locked, long-horizon investment accounts.
$12,000 is not transformative in isolation. It becomes transformative when paired with a steady stream of contributions and a realistic understanding of inflation. So, imagine a modest annual investment of $2,000 per child. No fantasy. No trillion-dollar federal program. Just $2,000 per year, contributed automatically and left untouched.
Where does that $2,000 come from? It does not require a sweeping new tax regime. Think instead of a funding quilt:
- The Diverted Flow: Families already receive the Child Tax Credit. We create a default option—a “nudge”—that routes half of it directly into the child’s locked account.
- The Employer Match: We offer a tax credit that encourages businesses to match contributions for workers’ children. In effect, we create a “401(k) for Kids.”
- The Safety Net Floor: For the poorest families, a small public subsidy fills the gap. It is just enough to keep the compound interest engine running.
Now, put all of that in an extremely boring investment vehicle: a low-cost S&P 500 index fund. Assume a conservative nominal return of 7.5 percent. We must also assume inflation eats 2.5 percent of that every year. The true value is not the nominal number on the screen, but the real purchasing power the money commands.
Once you translate everything into today’s dollars, the picture becomes clear. It no longer reads like science fiction. It reads like a plan to solve the most fundamental economic problem in America: fragility.
Phase I: Age 20
By age twenty, the account holds:
• Nominal Value : ~ $138,000
• Today’s Purchasing Power: ~ $98,000
This is not luxury. It is a cushion. It is the difference between entering adulthood with debt or entering it with options. That $98,000 pays for a bachelor’s degree at a state university. It funds vocational training. It forms a 20% down payment on a median starter home in many metro areas.
The behavioral impact is what matters. A young adult with $98,000 behind them is harder to exploit. They do not take the first bad job out of panic. They can afford to move to where the opportunities are, rather than staying where the rent is cheapest. When people are not desperate, they lower their time preference. They plan for the future because they can afford to have one.
Phase II: Age 30
By age thirty, the account has grown to:
• Nominal Value : ~$311,000
• Today’s Purchasing Power: ~$200,000
This is the point where capital becomes a risk engine. Starting a business in America has increasingly become a luxury good—something you do if your parents can bail you out. But $200,000 in liquid capital changes the calculus. It allows a mechanic to buy equipment and open his own shop. It allows a designer to start a firm. It allows a teacher or a nurse space to experiment. It democratizes risk.
This is also the period when geographic mobility increases. When people have the financial cushion to leave stagnant regions and move to dynamic ones, national productivity rises. Capital creates the freedom to relocate. Opportunity becomes portable.
Phase III: Age 50
By age fifty, the account holds:
• Nominal Value : ~$1.41 million
• Today’s Purchasing Power: ~$620,000
This is not extravagant wealth. It is a floor. It is exactly the kind of financial foundation that America is currently failing to provide. Social Security is strained. Private pensions have vanished. Most households approach retirement with little or no savings.
A paid-for house and a $620,000 nest egg does not guarantee a life of leisure, but it prevents disaster. It eliminates old-age poverty. And stability for older adults has powerful spillover effects: it stabilizes the families who would otherwise have to support them.
The Real Conclusion The Dell pledge is an interesting spark. The scaled version described here is the fire. It uses realistic contributions to build a generational asset base for every child in the country.
This proposal is not about redistribution. It is about producing a scarce good: stability.
Critics will say it costs too much. But our current system already spends enormous sums on the consequences of instability—from emergency rooms to crisis welfare. This model flips the incentives. It front-loads stability and allows capital markets to do the heavy lifting.
Give every child a small stake. Let it grow. Let compounding speak for itself. That is the real money case for capital accounts.
KYLE'S BLOG 