Millions of children can get $1,000 from Trump for retirement accounts. Will it shrink the wealth gap?

A thousand bucks at birth, invested and left alone for eighteen years, actually turns into something. That's the part worth sitting with before anyone starts picking the idea apart. It's not a check people can cash for groceries next week. It's a bet on compounding, which is a very old and very unfashionable idea in Washington these days.

Will it close the wealth gap on its own? No, and nobody serious is claiming that. A kid born into a family that can also contribute over the years ends up in a completely different place than a kid whose account just sits there. Experts are right to point that out. But that's an argument for encouraging more contributions, not a reason to sneer at the starting gift.

What strikes us is how rare it is for Washington to give a child something that isn't a subsidy, a voucher, or a program with a caseworker attached. This is an account with the kid's name on it. That's a different relationship to money than most federal policy ever offers, and it's worth taking seriously instead of grading it against a wealth gap it was never going to erase by itself.