Baby bonds are publicly funded child trust accounts that target children from low-wealth or low-income families. When the children reach adulthood, they can use the funds for wealth-building activities, such as purchasing a home or starting a small business. Because baby bonds are a nascent policy, there are no published empirical studies on impact, and the literature overall is sparse. However, a number of simulations exist; in this brief, we provide a literature review of three simulation studies that model the potential impacts of baby bonds, with a focus on outcomes relating to racial wealth equity. We also review the literature of related early life wealth-building programs (e.g., child development accounts) to assess outcomes that may be achievable with baby bonds policies. The three simulations we analyzed all find that baby bonds would reduce Black-white racial wealth inequities, though they differ in scale. Zewde (2020) predicts the biggest improvement in racial wealth inequities—predicting that at the median, the white/Black gap would be reduced to a factor 1.4 to 1 ($79,000 to $58,000), compared to a factor of 15.8 to 1 ($46,000 to $2,900). Weller and colleagues (2021) estimate that the white-Black wealth gap will reduce to a factor of approximately 2.7 to 1 by 2060, still leaving a gap of $1.37 million. Mitchell and Szapiro (2020) predict baby bonds would narrow the white-Black wealth gap to a factor of about 3.4 to 1 at the median for adults ages 18–25, with a remaining gap of over $90,000.
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A Summary of Literature
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