Lalit Shastri

Public policy across the world is increasingly being shaped by a common realisation: if inequality is to be addressed meaningfully, intervention must begin early in life. A recent news report from the United States, describing a new initiative of the Trump administration to create an investment account for every child born in the country, offers an interesting opportunity to reflect on how social-welfare thinking is evolving globally. When viewed alongside Madhya Pradesh’s well-known Ladli Laxmi Yojana launched by the then Chief Minister Shivraj Singj Chouhan , the comparison reveals a striking philosophical convergence, even though the two programmes differ in design, scale and political context.

According to the report, the US President Donald Trump has proposed a system under which every newborn child in the United States will receive a government-backed starter contribution of one thousand dollars in a self-directed investment account. The idea is to ensure that each child enters life with a tangible financial asset that can grow over time through investment and additional voluntary contributions from parents, employers, state governments and other donors. The stated intention is to enable young citizens to begin their adult lives with economic footing rather than financial fragility, and to shift the starting point of opportunity in favour of those who would otherwise inherit disadvantage.

At its core, this proposal represents a move away from traditional welfare models that focus primarily on short-term income support. Instead, it reflects a policy shift towards what economists and social planners describe as asset-based welfare—an approach that emphasises long-term capability, resilience and economic participation. The child is no longer viewed merely as a future beneficiary of government schemes, but as a future economic stakeholder whose potential can be nurtured through early public investment.

In Madhya Pradesh, the Ladli Laxmi Yojana, launched in 2007, was born out of a different social urgency but rests on a remarkably similar welfare logic. The scheme was introduced to improve the status, education and wellbeing of the girl child, a demographic historically burdened by deep-rooted social discrimination. Under the programme, the state commits a defined financial amount in the name of the girl child and links the final benefit to educational attainment and the prevention of early marriage. The intention is to alter family and community incentives by making the future of a girl child both socially and economically visible.

From a social-welfare perspective, the strongest similarity between the two initiatives lies in their shared belief that the state must intervene before disadvantage becomes entrenched. Both policies recognise that by the time young people reach adulthood, social and economic outcomes are often already determined by circumstances of birth. Whether it is through an investment account in the United States or an assured financial commitment in Madhya Pradesh, both governments seek to push policy action to the very beginning of life, when the long arc of opportunity is first formed.

Equally significant is the way both schemes attempt to redefine the purpose of public spending on children. Rather than treating welfare as compensation for poverty alone, both approaches treat early financial support as an instrument of empowerment. The American initiative frames the newborn as an emerging economic participant whose future productivity and stability will benefit society at large. The Ladli Laxmi Yojana, while targeted specifically at girls, similarly positions the beneficiary not as a passive recipient of state charity but as a future educated, independent and socially secure citizen.

Another important point of convergence lies in the principle of inter-generational equity. In the American proposal, the initial public contribution is designed to grow over time, thereby creating a small but meaningful asset base that can help young adults pursue education, entrepreneurship or housing. In the Madhya Pradesh scheme, the final payment at maturity is intended to give a young woman a measure of financial autonomy at a critical transition point in her life. In both cases, the policy objective is to reduce the extent to which life chances depend solely on family wealth, inheritance or social position.

Both initiatives also reflect a deeper recognition that social reform and economic reform are not separable. The Ladli Laxmi Yojana is explicitly designed to influence social behaviour—encouraging schooling and discouraging child marriage—through financial commitment. The American initiative, though not tied to behavioural conditions in the same way, is rooted in the belief that financial inclusion from birth can reshape patterns of inequality and economic mobility across generations. In each case, fiscal tools are being used to pursue broader social transformation.

At the same time, it is important to acknowledge the structural differences between the two models. The US proposal is universal and gender-neutral, whereas Ladli Laxmi is a targeted intervention responding to a specific social imbalance. The American scheme emphasises market-linked growth and private contributions alongside public funding, while the Madhya Pradesh model relies primarily on a government-assured benefit linked to social outcomes. These differences, however, do not weaken the welfare comparison; rather, they underline how similar ideas are adapted to distinct social realities.

Ultimately, the meaningful parallel between the two initiatives is not administrative design but policy intent. Both represent an attempt to move welfare thinking away from crisis management and towards long-term social investment. Whether in a developed economy confronting inequality of opportunity, or in an Indian state addressing entrenched gender disadvantage, the underlying message is the same: the state has a legitimate and proactive role in shaping a child’s economic future from the very beginning.

In that sense, while there is no evidence that the American initiative has directly drawn from the Madhya Pradesh model, both policies reflect a shared global shift in social-welfare thinking—one that recognises that the most powerful form of social justice may lie not in redistributing hardship later, but in redesigning opportunity at birth.