Melania Trump Launches Savings Accounts for Youth in Foster Care
‘Fostering the Future Accounts’ are made in tandem with the U.S. Treasury Department and financed through the president’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill.’
Building on her advocacy for America’s youth in foster care, First Lady Melania Trump alongside Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Thursday unveiled new savings accounts designed to establish financial stability for young people aging out of foster care.
“Fostering the Future Accounts give foster children the same chance for asset ownership and long-term wealth building as every other American child. By investing in our foster youth now, we help strengthen America’s workforce, communities, and economic future,” Mrs. Trump said.
This historic measure is a first for the United States and is designed by the first lady in tandem with the U.S. Department of Treasury, according to the White House. To date, 23 governors have pledged to set up Fostering the Future Accounts for children within their states’ care.
“For Fostering the Future youth, empowerment comes through ownership. This includes ownership of knowledge through education and now ownership through savings and investment accounts. Education and savings accounts are the first steps toward personal independence,” Mrs. Trump said.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the Office of Management and Budget issued Federal guidance allowing state, territorial and tribal child welfare agencies to open the accounts for any child or youth in their care, according to the White House.
Under that guidance, the U.S. Department of the Treasury will recognize state child welfare agencies acting as a guardian for children and youth in foster care, or their designees, as eligible individuals for opening an account when a child is in foster care. A dedicated helpline designed specifically to assist states in setting up these accounts for children and youth in foster care has also been established, Bessent said in his remarks.
Fostering the Future Accounts expands access to the Trump Accounts for youth in foster care and provides states a pathway to direct existing resources to their future, Bessent said. Trump Accounts, launching on July 4, 2026, are designed for children who are born between Jan. 1, 2025 and Dec. 31, 2028, and include a $1,000 federal contribution. President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill Act” authorized the creation of the account, according to the White House.
On average in the United States there are about 400,000 children in foster care and about 20,000 young people age out of foster care every year, according to the National Foster Youth Initiative. Many of those children lack the resources to support themselves financially or know where to find support.
Bessent praised the first lady for helping advance the Trump accounts. He called the new foster care initiative and the Trump Accounts “the most important benefit for young people since the GI Bill.”
Melania Trump Gives Awards to Student AI Projects
In the midst of a race for artificial intelligence development in the United States and among debates about the potential harms vs. benefits of the innovation, First Lady Melania Trump on Tuesday encouraged students “to build boldly” and “to safeguard America’s leading position in the world of technology.”
From the White House East Room, Mrs. Trump welcomed teams of students who participated in the Presidential Artificial Intelligence Challenge to a National Champion Awards Ceremony. There, the first lady awarded six teams and 120 finalists for their projects, which were designed to use artificial intelligence to tackle real-world challenges. The challenge engaged more than 20,000 students from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and 49 Department of Defense Education Activity schools from 10 countries, according to the White House.
“Artificial intelligence gives your communities access to the largest amount of information ever recorded in humanity’s history. This fundamental democratization of intellect will profoundly alter society: our industries, our social safety net, and even our open-mindedness toward cultural diversity,” Mrs. Trump said. “Wisdom is tolerance, and change will be enhanced at hyper-speed.”
The White House event comes on the heels of a new NPR/Ipsos poll of K-12 teachers released last week that found that nearly 3-in-4 believe AI has bigger implications for education than past innovations like the internet or computers. The poll also showed that more than half, 54%, of polled teachers say AI makes it harder for students to learn critical thinking skills and 55% believe AI is mostly used as a shortcut for students to avoid doing more work.
The Presidential Challenge projects awarded were “Homework Helper” and “Friendzone Chatbot Bullying Prevention App” from elementary school teams from Alcoa, Tennessee, and Aldie, Virginia; “Skill Up” and “Using AI Models to Detect Urban Blight Using Streetview Images” from the middle school teams from Sammamish, Washington, and Jacksonville, Florida; and “Utilizing Computer Vision for Hotel Room Identification in Criminal Investigations” and “IRIS: A Low-Cost Spatiotemporal AI Framework for Visually Impaired Navigation in Complex Urban Environments” from the high school teams in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, and Sewickley, Pennsylvania.
After Mrs. Trump’s remarks, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios spoke about how AI is “a magical technology” that needs to be demystified.
The winners were recognized on stage where the first lady gave them their award certificates, shook their hands and posed for pictures with them.
Mrs. Trump spent a few minutes after the ceremony talking to the kids prior to a reception in the Rose Garden for winners and attendees. Select winners met with the first lady in the Blue Room to show her their inventions.
The Weekly Wrap
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