I'm a New Yorker who's keeping up with the Mamdani administration. His newly appointed economic transition committee head, Darrick Hamilton, is a scholar who advocates for instituting baby bonds in the US.
I then learned that the UK did this. For seven years, with the passage of the Child Trust Funds Act of 2004, the UK gave £250 in trust accounts to every newborn, unable to be withdrawn until the child is 18. I've read that it was very successful at convincing grandparents to add to the trust, since the money couldn't be diverted to other uses.
The system was discontinued by the Savings Accounts and Health in Privacy Grant Act of 2010.
Was the system actually a failure? Why was it discontinued so quickly? How did you, people in the UK, feel about the system's implementation and subsequent abolition?