---
title: "Opportunity Accounts | A Government That Works for the People"
canonical: "https://govthatworks.org/opportunity-accounts"
description: "Chapter 20: universal birth accounts, progressive public deposits, qualified uses, and a compound-growth calculator."
---
Ownership · Chapter 20

# An Ownership Society for Everyone

Income pays today’s bills; wealth changes what options a family can take tomorrow. The book’s ownership agenda therefore adds a universal public asset at birth and larger deposits for children starting with less family wealth.

The calculator below is transparent about where the book stops. It uses the book’s maximum deposit and an explicitly illustrative phase-down formula; it is not an official account projection.

**Read the source chapter in the book**Chapter 20 — An Ownership Society for Everyone

[Open Chapter 20](/reader?ch=20#chapter-20)

Chapter 20

## Give every child an asset, not only an income stream.

The account is universal at birth and progressive in its public deposits. The book uses the federal child-account infrastructure created in 2025 as an administrative base, while changing the deposit schedule so children from low-wealth families receive more public capital.

$1,000

### Birth deposit

Every newborn receives an automatically opened public account.

≤ $2,000

### Annual public deposit

Sliding-scale annual deposits up to $2,000 for low-wealth families.

18

### Qualified access

Education or training, a first home, starting or investing in a business, or long-term retirement saving.

Index

### Low-cost investment

Diversified, low-fee funds under fiduciary standards modeled on Thrift Savings Plan principles.

Compound-growth calculator

## How could an account grow by age 18?

The book specifies the $1,000 birth deposit and an annual sliding scale up to $2,000, but it does not publish a dollar-by-dollar phase-down formula. This website calculator therefore labels its wealth/income schedule as an illustration.

Parental / household wealth$25,000

Household income$55,000

Illustrative real annual return3.0%

Illustrative annual public deposit**$2,000**

Projected age-18 balance**$48,000**

Total public deposits**$37,000**

Zero-asset baseline**$0**

**Account balance**

**Goal**

A society in which most households own assets and a child’s starting wealth depends less on the family into which the child is born.

**Instrument**

American Opportunity Accounts with a universal birth deposit and progressive annual deposits; employee ownership and profit sharing; taxation of large unrealized gains at death and a stronger estate tax; expanded small-business and community lending; a federal commission to study redress for slavery and its effects.

**Who pays**

Opportunity Accounts $50–70B/year at full implementation from general revenue, partly offset by taxation of gains at death. Author planning estimate.

**Who implements**

Treasury and IRS; a TSP-like federal investment platform; SBA and CDFI Fund; a statutory redress commission.

**Legal vehicle**

Federal statute throughout; no constitutional amendment.

**Principal risk**

Account balances remain too small relative to inherited wealth, or contribution rules mainly subsidize families already able to save.

**Measure / failure trigger**

Median age-18 balance for children from low-wealth families, positive net worth among young adults, first-generation homeownership, and racial/ethnic median-wealth ratios; redesign deposit schedule if the first full cohort does not narrow starting-balance gaps.

The Strongest Counterargument & Our Response

### Best case against

The best case against the accounts is that the payoff arrives too late for families struggling now, while restricting uses at age eighteen is paternalistic and may still expose young adults to bad investments, predatory schools, or overheated housing markets.

### The author's response

The chapter treats the accounts as an ownership policy, not a replacement for current income support. Qualified uses, low-cost default funds, fiduciary rules, financial counseling, and exclusion from benefit asset tests are intended to protect the account while preserving meaningful choice.

### What remains uncertain

The book does not claim that a $25,000–$45,000 balance eliminates the wealth gap. The appropriate public deposit schedule, behavioral effects, and interaction with private family contributions require data after the first cohorts accumulate balances.

**Read the source chapter in the book**Chapter 20 — An Ownership Society for Everyone

[Open Chapter 20](/reader?ch=20#chapter-20)

## Interactive tool: Opportunity Endowment Growth Engine
The page includes an illustrative $10,000–$25,000 birth-endowment sandbox with income-tier matching, an adjustable state contribution, and constant-return projections to ages 18, 25, and 35. This sandbox is intentionally separate from the exact Chapter 20 formula.