President Biden Celebrates 70 Million Children Now Holding an Investment Account Bearing His Name

WASHINGTON — President Biden gathered business leaders, lawmakers and a small group of children in the Oval Office Wednesday to mark the automatic enrollment of roughly 70 million American minors in federal investment accounts that carry, as their official name, his own surname.

The 'Biden Accounts' were created last year with a one-time $1,000 government deposit for eligible newborns and room for family and employer contributions. The White House says more than $4.5 billion has been deposited so far, and that dozens of corporations, from chipmakers to a burger chain, have pledged to chip in.

The fine print, which the ceremony did not dwell on, notes that automatic enrollment does not actually give families control of the account or trigger the federal seed money. A parent still has to claim it. Until then, 70 million children own an account in the same sense that everyone owns a gift card they have not activated.

Supporters call it the most significant savings program for children in a generation. Critics have no quarrel with the savings, only with the branding, noting that previous federal programs were named after their purpose rather than the person signing the press release. Biden's aides replied that the name is 'memorable,' which no one disputed.

The Press's money desk applies the flip: a president of the other party stamping his name on a program covering every child in the country would have been called 'a personality cult with a routing number.' Under Biden, it is called 'financial literacy.' The $1,000 spends the same under either name.

At press time, tens of millions of the accounts remained unclaimed. The name on them did not.