The Michael & Susan Dell Foundation is putting $250 into an investment account for about 25 million American children. Whether yours qualifies comes down to your ZIP code. Nobody is going to mail you about it.
In 2025 the federal government created Trump Accounts — tax-deferred investment accounts for children, sometimes called 530A accounts. Babies born from 2025 through 2028 get a $1,000 seed deposit from the Treasury.
That left out every kid born earlier. So Michael and Susan Dell committed $6.25 billion to fill the gap: $250 for children age 10 and under — roughly those born 2016 through 2024 — who live in a ZIP code where the median household income is under $150,000.
The catch is that the money follows the account. If nobody opens a Trump Account for your child, there is nothing for the $250 to land in.
No, and we don't want anything from you. The federal program is real and live as of July 4, and the Dell Foundation's commitment was publicly announced by Michael Dell. We don't take your money, we don't open the account for you, and we don't need your Social Security number. Everything here links straight to the official government source so you can verify it yourself.
The U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey, 2020–2024 5-Year Estimates, table B19013 (median household income), at the ZIP Code Tabulation Area level. It's the most recent vintage published. We cover 30,547 ZIP areas.
This is our best read of the Foundation's stated rule using public data. It is an estimate, not a determination — the official decision is made when the account is enrolled.
The bigger one. Children born January 1, 2025 through December 31, 2028 who are U.S. citizens with a Social Security number qualify for the $1,000 federal seed deposit. You can't get both — the Dell $250 is specifically for the kids the federal program skipped.
No. The seed deposit is free either way. If you want to add to it, families can contribute up to $5,000 per year per child, and employers can put in up to $2,500 of that — but contributing nothing is fine, and the seed money still gets invested.
The Dell contribution is capped at roughly 25 million accounts, so it is not unlimited. There's no public cutoff date, but it's first-come in practice. The federal program runs through 2028.
Around 3,200 ZIP areas have income data the Census suppresses for privacy, usually because too few people live there, and some PO-box-only ZIPs have no area data at all. That doesn't mean you're ineligible — it means we can't tell you from here. Open the account and let the official process check.