Connecticut officials joined advocates and researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York recently to talk about the state’s trailblazing ‘baby bonds’ program, and how it might ultimately serve as a proving ground for efforts around the country.
The program, which launched in July 2024, invests $3,200 on behalf of babies enrolled in Connecticut’s Medicaid program, HUSKY. More than half the babies born in Connecticut are to mothers on Medicaid, and around 15,600 babies are expected by be enrolled in the program annually. Eligible participants live in every one of the state’s cities and towns.
Connecticut is so far unique in passing sustained, state-level support for the concept, but small experiments are popping up around the country, including one through private philanthropy in Georgia and a temporary program for children in foster care in California who were impacted by COVID. Several other states, including New Jersey and Massachusetts, are considering baby bonds-type programs.
The conference kicked off with a conversation between Connecticut State Treasurer Erick Russell and Darrick Hamilton, a professor at The New School and an economist who is credited with helping to create the concept. They discussed Connecticut’s first in the nation program, and how it may be planting the seeds of a national movement.
“We’re building political momentum, we start local,” said Hamilton, who is the founding director of the Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy at The New School. “But at the end of the day, to make this come into fruition, we’ve really got to get the federal government involved to ensure that all children of the United States will be able to get into that vehicle of wealth building.”
Russell spoke about his childhood growing up in New Haven, sweeping the floor and working the register after school at his parents’ store. No one he knew as a kid owned their own home and working paycheck to paycheck was a way of life.
Russell said he is trying to end poverty in Connecticut, and baby bonds are but one of many strategies required to achieve that goal.
“We understand that baby bonds, by itself, is not the solution to that problem,” Russell said. “This is a piece to the puzzle as we continue to make key investments in things like education and early child care and bringing down the cost of housing.”
Baby bonds can provide funds for a down payment on a home, money to open a business or pay for school. But officials said the existence of the funds may also help in less obvious ways: baby bonds can encourage a family to imagine a child’s future and plan for it.
The funds could stave off gentrification by creating a cohort of people who are able to cash in at around the same time and even pool resources to support their neighborhood. And they help link parents to state supports through a positive vehicle.
Laura Tillman is a reporter for the Connecticut Mirror. Copyright 2025 @ CTMirror (ctmirror.org).
