Some parents save for years to help their kids pay for college. Others who are more fortunate may set up trust funds for their children, giving them a head start on financial stability when they become adults.

But what if the second option were available to low- and middle-income D.C. families, paid for by the government? D.C. Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie (D-Ward 5) wants to give it a try.

On Monday he introduced a bill that would create a publicly funded trust fund — known as a baby bond — for children whose families make less than $132,000 a year. Upon birth, every eligible child in D.C. would receive a $1,000 payment from the government into their fund, followed by annual, income-based supplemental payments that could reach $2,000 for the lowest-income children. Once they turn 18, each child would be able to withdraw the money for specific uses like education, business ownership or investment, or to purchase a home. Roughly 9,500 children are born in D.C. every year.

If the idea sounds familiar, it’s because it was the centerpiece of Sen. Cory Booker’s (D-New Jersey) brief presidential run in 2019. (In February, he re-introduced his baby bonds bill in the Senate.) The idea has caught on among some left-leaning activists and advocates, who say it’s a relatively simple way to start closing the racial wealth gap in the U.S.

That’s even more the case in D.C., says McDuffie, where according to an Urban Institute study the typical white household had a net worth of $284,000 while Black households only had a net worth of $3,500.

“We’ve got to be bold and we’ve got to think big if we really want to try to chip away at the really stark racial inequities that exist in the District of Columbia and try to close one of the most significant racial wealth gaps between Blacks and whites of any city in the United States,” he said.

According to the Kids Count Book from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, in 2017 33% of Black children nationwide lived in poverty, compared to 11% of white children. In D.C., 26% of all kids under the age of 18 are under the poverty line, higher than the national average of 18%. And the poverty is extremely concentrated in areas with the highest Black populations. While the 2019 child poverty rate stood at 7.6% in Ward 2 and 1.8% in Ward 3, it jumped to 40.3% in Ward 7 and 43% in Ward 8.

McDuffie first hinted at the idea of bringing baby bonds to D.C. earlier this year, when in a letter to Mayor Muriel Bowser he asked her to undertake “bold, structural reform” to address the racial wealth gap and persistent inequities that were in many cases highlighted and exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. He asked her to set aside $100 million to develop a universal basic income pilot program for low-income families (the Council studied the idea in 2018) and put $20 million towards a baby bonds program. (She still could; her budget proposal is expected later this month.)

Last year, McDuffie introduced a bill to create a task force that would study the economic impact of slavery and then recommend a proposal to help Black Washingtonians.

“The cost of not doing it are pretty clear,” he said about his new bill. “We maintain this stark racial wealth gap and we don’t do enough to help the families and young folks in the District of Columbia on the lower end of the income spectrum. And this is one of the ways we can try to begin to chip away at that.”

As proposed, the annual payments to every qualified child’s fund would vary based on their family’s income. For a family of four on the lowest end of the scale — under $26,500 a year — each kid would get $2,000 a year. In a family of the same size making between $106,000 and $132,000 a year, the kids would get $250 a year. Some estimates of similar baby bonds proposals — like Booker’s — say that an 18-year-old at low end of the income scale could earn up to $50,000 by the time they age out of the program.

McDuffie’s bill comes only weeks before Bowser is expected to unveil her budget proposal for the coming year, which is likely to be buoyed by $2.2 billion in federal aid from the most recent COVID-19 stimulus bill. The pandemic and last summer’s racial justice protests have spurred calls for increased spending on a variety of social programs, from housing and homeless services to education and business assistance.

Additionally, the IRS said in April that by July it expects to start sending out enhanced monthly child tax credit payments that were part of the stimulus, which advocates say could put a significant dent in child poverty across the country.