How affordability, access to capital, and wealth-building can transform economic mobility for generations to come. 

The American social safety net has been one of our nation’s greatest innovations. For generations, it has helped families navigate periods of economic hardship through nutrition assistance, health care, housing supports, unemployment insurance and child care assistance. These investments have strengthened families, stabilized communities and expanded opportunity for millions of Americans. 

Yet today’s economy calls us to think even more boldly. 

The next generation of the social safety net should ensure essential protections that help families weather hardship while also becoming a springboard to wealth creation, economic mobility and intergenerational economic success. 

America’s economic challenges are no longer defined solely by income. They are increasingly defined by wealth—or the lack of it. Income helps families pay today’s bills, but wealth creates tomorrow’s opportunities. Wealth enables families to purchase a home, finance higher education, start a business, weather emergencies, recover from natural disasters and pass opportunity from one generation to the next. 

Yet millions of American families remain financially vulnerable. According to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, many households would struggle to cover an unexpected $400 emergency expense using cash or its equivalent alone. That reality becomes even more consequential as climate change increases the frequency and severity of floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires and extreme heat. Financial resilience has become an essential component of community resilience. Families without savings often face impossible choices when confronted with a medical emergency, a car repair or the financial consequences of a climate-related disaster. 

If we are serious about advancing intergenerational economic success, we must recognize that many families are not struggling because they lack determination. They are navigating systems that too often make it difficult to build wealth or even save.   

Three interconnected challenges illustrate why the next generation of the social safety net must evolve: affordability, benefits modernization and access to capital. 

Affordability: The foundation for asset building

Our Human Services grantee partner Economic Security Project has helped advance an affordability framework that reminds us that families cannot build wealth if nearly every paycheck is consumed by the rising costs of housing, child care, food, health care, transportation and higher education. Affordability and asset building are inseparable. When the cost of meeting basic needs continues to outpace family resources, there is little left to save, invest or build wealth. The question is whether our economy leaves families enough room to pursue economic opportunity. 

Benefits Modernization: Work must lead to advancement

Our Human Services grantee partner Martha O’Bryan Center has also elevated the national conversation around the benefits cliffs—the reality that modest increases in earnings can trigger the loss of public benefits that often exceeds the value of the additional income. Families who are working, earning promotions or accepting additional hours can sometimes find themselves financially worse off because critical supports disappear too quickly. These are policy design challenges that deserve policy solutions, not individual failures. 

The conversation about the future of the social safety net must also include work. As policymakers debate mandatory work requirements for public benefit programs, it is important to recognize that millions of Americans receiving assistance are already working or are members of working families. Many work full time, hold multiple jobs, balance unpredictable schedules or juggle employment with caregiving responsibilities simply to make ends meet. Their challenge is often not a lack of work—it is that wages have not kept pace with the rising costs of basic needs.  

The goal of public policy should be to ensure that work creates a meaningful pathway to economic security, wealth building and intergenerational economic success. The next generation of the social safety net should honor work by removing barriers to advancement, modernizing benefits so families are not penalized for earning more and ensuring that employment is a pathway to opportunity. 

Access to Capital: Moving from survival to generational success

The third challenge is access to capital. 

One of the nation’s leading voices on this issue is our Human Services grantee partner Dr. Darrick Hamilton of The New School, whose scholarship on Baby Bonds has fundamentally reshaped the national conversation about wealth building. Dr. Hamilton argues that wealth provides both economic security and economic agency. It gives families the ability not only to withstand financial shocks, but also to pursue higher education, purchase a home, launch a business, relocate for employment and invest in future generations. 

As policymakers explore new approaches to helping families build assets, it is important to distinguish between Baby Bonds and Trump Accounts. While both seek to encourage long-term wealth building, they are designed to solve different problems. Trump Accounts establish investment accounts that can grow through voluntary contributions from families and others.  

For households with the financial capacity to invest consistently, these accounts may become meaningful tools for wealth accumulation. Baby Bonds, by contrast, were designed to address unequal access to wealth itself. Rather than relying primarily on a family’s ability to contribute, Baby Bonds make larger public investments in children born into households with the fewest financial assets, recognizing that wealth inequality begins long before a child enters the workforce. In that sense, Trump Accounts primarily reward the capacity to save, while Baby Bonds seek to expand the opportunity to build wealth. Both promote asset ownership, but only one is explicitly designed to reduce wealth disparities by broadening access to capital. 

Baby Bonds are especially significant for Indigenous communities and communities of color that have faced historical and ongoing barriers to building wealth and accessing capital through policies and practices affecting land ownership, homeownership, credit markets, business financing and other pathways to asset accumulation. Expanding equitable access to capital is not about creating special advantages. It is about ensuring that every child has a meaningful opportunity to build wealth regardless of the wealth they inherit at birth. 

Wealth-building policy for families left out

Our conversation about wealth must also include the tax code. Public policy already plays a significant role in helping Americans build wealth. Tax preferences related to capital gains, inherited wealth, retirement savings, homeownership and other asset-based investments have helped millions of families build financial security. At the same time, many of these incentives provide their greatest benefits to households that already possess assets or disposable income. As we imagine the next generation of the social safety net, we should also consider how public policy can expand wealth-building opportunities for families who have historically had the least access to capital. If the next generation of the social safety net is intended to create intergenerational economic success, then our wealth-building policies must be designed not only to encourage saving, but also to expand access to capital for families who have historically had the fewest opportunities to accumulate wealth. 

Stability is only the beginning 

This vision is deeply personal to me. 

I write not only as a philanthropic leader committed to systems change, but as someone who has lived many of the challenges our policies are designed to address. As a former postsecondary student-parent and a former recipient of food assistance, Medicaid and child care assistance, I understand firsthand the importance of a strong social safety net. Those supports helped provide stability during a season when I was working to build a better future for my family. I also understand the difficult choices families make every day, the financial stress that accompanies economic insecurity, and the barriers that can make it extraordinarily difficult to save, build wealth and get ahead. 

My experience taught me that the social safety net is an investment in human potential. It creates the stability families need to persevere during difficult seasons. But I also know that stability alone is not enough. Families deserve more than the opportunity to survive. They deserve the opportunity to build assets, accumulate wealth, create economic security and pass greater opportunity to the next generation. 

That is why I believe the next generation of the social safety net must evolve. 

It must continue helping families navigate hardship while also addressing affordability, modernizing benefits, expanding access to capital through policies such as Baby Bonds and modernizing aspects of our tax code that too often amplify wealth disparities. Together, these strategies can help build a human rights economy—one in which every person has a meaningful opportunity to build wealth, exercise economic agency and fully participate in our nation’s prosperity. 

Philanthropy’s role in what comes next 

Philanthropy has a unique responsibility to help imagine what public policy can become—not simply by responding to today’s challenges, but by investing in the ideas, partnerships, research and innovations that shape tomorrow’s solutions. At Kresge, we have the privilege of working alongside extraordinary organizations whose work is helping redefine what is possible—from advancing affordability, to eliminating benefits cliffs, to expanding access to capital and economic opportunity. Their leadership reminds us that meaningful systems change happens when evidence, lived experience, community voice and power, and bold policy ideas come together. 

As we begin America’s next 250 years, we have an extraordinary opportunity to renew our nation’s promise. Throughout our history, we have repeatedly reimagined our institutions to meet the challenges of a changing country. We have expanded educational opportunity, built Social Security and Medicare, invested in infrastructure, strengthened civil rights and created systems that have improved the lives of millions. Today’s challenges call for that same spirit of innovation and shared purpose. 

We know that affordability matters. We know that benefits cliffs can undermine work and economic mobility. We know that access to capital shapes wealth and opportunity across generations. We know that public policy—including the tax code—can either reinforce existing wealth disparities or expand opportunity. 

The evidence is before us. The research is compelling. The solutions are within reach. 

The question is no longer whether America knows how to address these challenges. After 250 years of innovation, resilience and democratic progress, we do. The question is whether we have the vision and the collective will to build the next generation of the social safety net—one that not only responds to crisis, but also serves as a springboard to wealth creation, economic mobility and intergenerational economic success. 

From surviving hardship to building prosperity 

When I think about the future of the social safety net, I do not think first about programs or policies. I think about possibility. I think about parents pursuing a college degree after putting their children to bed. I think about families rebuilding after a storm. I think about workers whose hard work is finally rewarded with economic security instead of continued financial strain. I think about young adults purchasing their first home, starting a business or pursuing higher education because they had access to capital—not because of the circumstances into which they were born, but because our nation chose to invest in their potential. 

That is the America I believe in. One where opportunity is not inherited by a fortunate few but intentionally expanded to every community. One where the social safety net remains a vital source of stability while also becoming a springboard to possibility. One where we understand that when families build wealth, generations build prosperity. 

If we have the vision to imagine that future, I believe we have the ability—and the responsibility—to build it. 

The next generation of the social safety net is not simply about protecting people from poverty. It is about preparing every person to participate in prosperity. 

The ideas reflected in this essay have been informed by the leadership and partnership of many organizations working to advance economic mobility, strengthen families, and transform the social safety net. I am grateful to our Human Services grantee partners and colleagues whose work continues to shape this evolving vision.