Too many households in the United States are living paycheck to paycheck, with limited ability to build wealth or achieve long-term financial security. However, new wealth-building accounts advanced in the past two years, including 530A/Trump accounts and the proposed Trump individual retirement account (IRA), hold promise for expanding opportunity and restoring pathways to the American dream.

As policymakers consider the design and implementation of Trump IRA, which will create a federal marketplace to expand access to tax-advantaged retirement savings for workers without employer-sponsored plans, they can seek to ground the program in decades of rigorous evidence from state auto-IRA programs and the federal myRA initiative.

These previous retirement initiatives point to clear and actionable lessons on what works and what does not. In particular, three core design principles can increase account take-up and long-term savings:

• Automatic enrollment drives participation.
• Public awareness sustains engagement.
• Contribution matches build assets over time.

Policymakers have an opportunity to incorporate these lessons—and by doing so, ensure strong participation, sustained savings, and meaningful wealth accumulation—as they refine Trump IRA and strengthen 530A/Trump accounts.

1. Automatic enrollment moves the needle on program participation

Evidence from a wide range of savings programs shows that simply making accounts available is not enough to drive participation. Instead, meaningful take-up depends on automatic features, particularly automatic enrollment with the option to opt out, although implementing autoenrollment will require congressional approval rather than an executive order.

State auto-IRA programs typically incorporate automatic enrollment, leading to substantially higher participation rates than voluntary systems. Vanguard data show that the participation rate among autoenrollment 401(k) Vanguard plans is 94 percent compared with 64 percent among voluntary-enrollment plans.

This pattern holds across early wealth-building accounts and retirement savings programs in the public and private sectors. Maine’s Alfond Grant, an early wealth-building program that invests $500 for children born in Maine, increased enrollment from about 40 percent of eligible newborns to nearly 100 percent after switching to automatic enrollment in 2013.

Early implementation of 530A/Trump accounts underscores this point. Although enrollment was broadly available through the tax filing system, only 33 percent of eligible families claimed the $1,000 initial deposit for their children as of April 2025. Similarly, the federal myRA program—which offered a low-cost, simple account with a safe investment option but no automatic, payroll-based enrollment—saw limited uptake.

Taken together, this evidence demonstrates that a program must offer access through automatic enrollment to meaningfully expand participation.

2. Public awareness helps turn enrollment into savings

Even well-designed automatic programs depend on participants understanding and engaging with their accounts. Without sufficient awareness, initial enrollment may not translate into sustained saving.

Research on state auto-IRA programs indicates that more than one-third of eligible workers may opt out of enrolling, in part because many of them are encountering these programs for the first time. Participants also make withdrawals, often in response to financial emergencies, which can reduce long-term savings. However, when people understand how their accounts work and see the value, they are more likely to remain engaged and continue saving.

Therefore, effective outreach is essential. Multilingual materials, sustained public education campaigns, and clear messaging can all improve awareness and engagement. With early wealth-building accounts, research has found that understanding an account exists is associated with increased parental engagement in children’s education and higher levels of optimism among children about their futures. As Trump IRA is developed, ensuring high levels of awareness among targeted groups will be critical to program success.

3. Contribution matches and initial deposits grow engagement and wealth

Initial deposits and savings matches (where an employer or government program contributes additional funds based on a participant’s contribution) play a key role in increasing participation and long-term asset accumulation, particularly for people and families with low and moderate incomes.

Evidence across a wide range of savings programs shows that such incentives are effective in encouraging participation and boosting long-term wealth building. These incentives are especially important for populations less likely to have access to employer-sponsored retirement plans, including those targeted by state auto-IRA programs and the proposed Trump IRA.

Among the newly created wealth-building accounts, the initial $1,000 federal deposit for 530A/Trump account pilot participants can help jump-start savings. Similarly, the federal Saver’s Match, which provides annual matching contributions of up to $1,000 for individuals and $2,000 for families, could significantly increase contributions and balances over time and mitigate gaps in retirement savings between groups.

Policymakers can build on these tools by extending the 530A/Trump account pilot and including progressive federal contributions, maintaining and expanding the Saver’s Match, and considering additional innovations for Trump IRA, such as third-party contributions from philanthropy or other partners as 530As allow.

Looking ahead

Well-designed, complementary wealth-building accounts that span from birth through retirement can create a powerful foundation for lifelong financial security. Starting investments early can lead to substantially greater asset accumulation and support key milestones such as postsecondary education, homeownership, business formation, and retirement.

As policymakers refine 530A/Trump accounts and design Trump IRA, incorporating lessons on automatic enrollment, public awareness, and contribution matches will be essential to realizing the full potential of these initiatives.