The latest Republican spending measure is likely to undergo substantial changes in the coming days as it winds its way through the House.

But currently, it includes a plan to give $1,000 to every baby born between 2025 and the end of 2028.

It's an idea that was first proposed by economic scholar Derek Hamilton.

Here is his brief but spectacular take on so-called baby bonds.

We have the ethos that if you just study hard, if you just work hard,

if you just make great decisions that one can accumulate wealth.

Now certainly studying hard, working hard, astute decision-makings are beneficial,

but they are limited if you don't have capital in the first place. Growing up in New York City in the 1980s, I could see the differences between the people I grew up with in Bedford-Stuyveson versus those who I went to school with.

I had the privilege of being able to go to an elite private school, Brooklyn Friends School, the individuals in both of the environments, the love, the care,

they didn't vary that much. But what did vary was economic circumstance and what that could

afford people. The typical black family has less than a dime for every dollar and wealth

as the typical white family. In fact, when black households acquire more

income or more education, if you compare them to their white counterparts, the gap does not reduce

it grows. I am the founding director of the Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy. Can you summarize what you're going to do

in two pages? I'm a scholar and I'm a teacher. I love engaging with people over ideas,

but it's not enough to do scholarship. It's not enough to have broad conceptions of how

society works. We translate that into actionable policy. The idea around baby bonds is simply

to ensure that every child has the benefits that's often exclusively reserved for the wealthy.

Baby bonds are accounts that are seated at birth, reserved by government, until the child becomes of age, a young adult.

And then those accounts are allowed to be used in wealth-building ways.

Essentially, babies that are born into poverty as measured by Medicaid use.

In July of 2023, the first baby to get a baby bonds in Connecticut happened.

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