In the Media
CRAIN’S CHICAGO BUSINESS: Trump accounts complicate the wealth gap debate
04. 13. 2026
“It’s clear how cash (payments have) really bridged this bipartisan line,” says Shafeka Hashash, director of cash initiatives at the Economic Security Project, a national organization that advocates for guaranteed income and other cash payments. “It’s so popular that everyone wants to jump on board.”
But Hashash notes what the Trump administration is also taking away from families.
“We cannot possibly think that setting up ‘wealth-building accounts’ for families is some type of victory when (the One Big Beautiful Bill Act), which set up these Trump accounts, also gutted the very social support that families have been relying on to make sure they didn’t fall even more into financial struggle and hardship,” she says. “You can’t have people facing this sledgehammer to their economic safety net and then think that this account that will give them an amount of cash, 18 years from now, is going to actually fix these issues.”