Md. governor candidate’s pitch to fight poverty: Trust funds for babies

If Democrat Wes Moore is elected Maryland’s governor, tackling childhood poverty is a “day one” priority for which he’s pitched an arsenal of expensive policy tools, including what could be the country’s largest “baby bonds” program to date. Moore’s trust fund program would cost roughly $100 million per year and be seeded with $3,200 for every child born on Medicaid, which amounts to nearly 40 percent of Maryland’s infants, disproportionately those from Black and Latino families. The goal is to ensure infants born in poverty arrive at adulthood on closer economic footing with their richer peers.