00:00 Josh
Michael Dell is set to gift billions of dollars to supplement new savings accounts for young children. And Yahoo Finance’s Washington correspondent, Ben Werskul, joins us now with the details. Ben.
00:11 Ben Werskul
Yeah, Josh, so this is a $6.25 billion gift from Michael Dell. He’s actually formally announcing it at the White House right now as as we’re talking. It’s from Michael Dell and his wife. The money here will go to the US Treasury, which will then be distributed in $250 increments into about 25 million of these of these Trump accounts.
00:36 Ben Werskul
This is alongside money that was allocated by Congress to give $1,000 to newborn children. This money will go to children 10 and under, so kind of expanding the pool of kids of kids able to access, uh able to access these accounts.
00:53 Ben Werskul
These accounts are intended to, you you set it up at birth. Your um your parents or your employer can can contribute up to $5,000 annually, and then you access it after age 18 to kind of give you a jump start on things like education and um and and buying a and buying a new home.
01:13 Ben Werskul
Um we what we’re also seeing today from the from this White House event, but also throughout the day, is kind of a real push to get more more folks involved, more philanthropy, um more more billionaires giving to it, but also getting companies involved in this too. So we’re seeing we’re seeing a big push in that way.
01:34 Ben Werskul
One interesting voice in that on that side is Corey Booker, the Democratic Senator from uh from New Jersey. He he’s not at the event, I don’t think. But but Ted Cruz is, another senator. They they co-wrote a letter to the Fortune 1000 CEOs saying, you need to sort of get involved in this.
01:51 Ben Werskul
They essentially clearly a push here to make this a benefit for employees. Alongside your 401k, you can give the companies can give up to 2,500. So that there’s an effort to make that part of part of your part of your benefit going forward.
02:07 Ben Werskul
Even as there is skepticism about how how involved um parents will be able to be in this, given some kind of limited tax advantages you get from contributing your own money towards these accounts.
02:18 Josh
All right. Thank you, Ben.