WASHINGTON — Aaliyah Manning’s dreams of becoming a psychologist ended abruptly during her freshman year at Potomac State in West Virginia when the cost of continuing her education became overwhelming.
“The money just wasn’t there,” said Manning, 25. “I knew I wasn’t going to finish so I just had fun.”
After a year, she was back in the nation’s capital working fast food jobs. Now she lives largely on public assistance in a two-bedroom apartment with her boyfriend, his mother and his 9-year-old daughter from another relationship. She still has student debt and there’s a baby boy on the way.
She sees a brighter future for that baby, thanks to a landmark social program being pioneered in Washington. Called “Baby Bonds,” it will provide children of the city’s poorest families with up to $25,000 when they reach adulthood — for use on multiple purposes, including education.
“It would be such a different opportunity for him, a lot different than what I had,” she said.
The Baby Bonds idea has swiftly moved from a fringe leftist concept to actual policy — with the District of Columbia as first laboratory. Lawmakers from coast to coast are monitoring the experiment, one that proponents say could reshape America’s growing wealth gap in a single generation if instituted on a federal level.
One week after giving birth to her second child, a daughter named Kali, Aaliyah Wright told The Associated Press that she didn’t anticipate having much savings to help her children when they reached adulthood, especially with about $80,000 in college loan debt. She and her husband, Kainan, are on Medicaid despite steady jobs (she’s a case worker at a nongovernmental organization and he’s a barber) and an estimated annual income around $70,000. Even at that income level, their new daughter still would qualify for the district’s program, although at a lower level.
“At that stage of maturity and adulthood, that money can be a door opener to some pretty big things,” Kainan Wright said
The bonds are more accurately trust funds, designed to provide a financial boost at a critical time for the poorest children. At age 18, each enrolled child would receive a lump sum payment that can be used to fund higher education, invest in a business or make a mortgage down payment.
“Think about all the things that people with money do to support themselves or what parents do for kids,” said Kenyan McDuffie, a District of Columbia Council member who pushed the Baby Bonds program through last summer. The city has so far identified 833 babies born since then who will receive up to $25,000 when they turn 18.
The concept, originally proposed by academics in 2010, came to mainstream attention when New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., made it a centerpiece of his 2020 presidential campaign.
“I think it’s an idea that’s growing,” Booker said. “And it’s a big idea. It’s on the level of Social Security. It’s on the level of Medicare.” He added: “One generation would create a dramatic change.”