55% of Americans have shares in the stock market...

To be honest I'm not sure what legal grounds you could implement for something like this.

It's again more along the lines of thinking about the disenfranchised. If you grow up in a stable family that practices good saving and investment habits, as a child you'll pick up on those skills and likely have parents who have invested into your future. You are better prepared for success as a young adult having actual financial backing to allow you to pursue your personal goals, be it college education or affording tools to buy for a construction trade and schooling.

Not every American is afforded that luxury. To make up for Americans who come from broken homes, you at least have a 401k invested in every American that they can't touch until the age of 18 (or 16 assuming you find employment), that just passively is invested in the stock market. Since historical trends of the stock market usually go upwards, that $100/month invested will generate more value than just the $21,600 you've put in by the time an American reaches 18 years of age. This way, Americans who don't have parents that save for them for things like college, will have a form of equity in their name they can deduct from to cover things like higher education.

I also look at this as economically incentivizing juvenile delinquents on the path to becoming career criminals to consider an alternate path. If you don't become a career criminal, there's a 401k invested in you since birth, that you could use to invest in yourself, instead of committing crime starting at 18 when you become a legal adult. If you do become a career criminal and serve 25 years time starting since 18 years of age, that's 43 years of passive investment into the stock market that will still benefit you, once you become an ex-con and have to start worrying about things like housing, and employment. You'd still have equity in your name to help you.

Likewise for homelessness. If you're on the path to homelessness, be it through something like addiction or alcoholism, there is still a 401k untouched by the homeless, invested in them since birth that's likely only grown in passive investment. Should a homeless person ever choose to get off drugs, there is a decent chunk o' change invested in them the whole time to allow them to get back on their feet easier.

I guess the pro when I think of this, is how it wouldn't be a waste of tax dollars. If your average return on investment in the stock market is 10%, then you're actually growing what you invested in tax dollars on someone since birth while simultaneously providing stimulus to the economy. I look at it as a practical means of investing in every American so they have a little nest egg available to them once they become adults and also entering retirement. End of life care is often very expensive. This would help cover some of that.

 

One other argument I think could be made in support of this is that we already fund through tax dollars humanitarian causes for the net negatives of society. We have tax funded free healthcare or low cost healthcare clinics. We have millions funded in tax dollars for the uninsured that use ER services for treatment. We have existing programs already that are essentially bottomless pits of tax money that provides the disenfranchised the bare minimum in humane relief.

This program does the same, but actually gets you a positive return on your tax investment. It's turning even the irredeemable of society that opt to remain life long prisoners caught in the penal system into a 401k positive investment that stimulates the economy. Likewise for your lifelong homeless that never access their 401k. That money would still be invested in them, yielding a positive return on investment that could then circulate back to your functioning members of society.

And again while this is only adding more weight to the idea that the stock market would be too big to fail, the truth is, we're already at that point. Our government since 2008 determined the stock market is too big to fail and should be propped up at all cost even in times of recession or depression. At least this way, every American benefits from the next trillion dollar tax cut, no matter how marginal it may be to their 401k.

 

So how would you get something like this on the ground running? If you started at $1,200/annually invested into roughly 328 million Americans you would be investing $393,600,000,000 per year of stimulus into the economy. That's feasible but I could see how some would be turned away by that.

Instead what if you started at $10/year per American. That's $3.28 billion per year. Still hefty, but more manageable especially if it started off being treated like a hedge fund. If you got a 10% return on investment with your tax money into a program like this, that's $328 million you accrued from the investment per year. Eventually as the monetary size increases, you can start working towards covering $100/month per American.

I imagine creating an entirely new government department who strictly handles economic financial investment to be responsible for the success of this program. Sort of like how rocketjudoka suggested the Central Provident Fund that Singapore uses.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Provident_Fund

This too started off as a program intended to cover retirement planning for citizens. However it's increasing success led to help with home buying, rainy day funds and eventually universal healthcare. This could be a feasible option to consider. Heck instead of $10/year per American, cut it down to $5/year per American. Assuming the stock market grows, so too will that collective piece of the stock market pie, we'd all be invested in. I mean wouldn't it be nice to know that at least some portion of your taxes paid leads to a positive return on investment?

EDIT: I'm bad with all these 000s.

 

And yet here we are. Just earlier this year we were talking about pumping 2.8 trillion potentially in stimulus for Covid. There likely still will need to be stimulus passed once this administration or the next administration takes action.

**** start it at $1/year per American. You'd still get a $32.8 million return on your investment with your tax dollars.

To the people that want universal healthcare but cite cost concerns as a reason to not change anything, this is how you eventually pool enough money to cover something like that. I mean this is even a feasible method to pay off national debt.

You don't think the U.S. government could recruit some big wig hedge fund manager to play with $328 million every year?

 

2021 - Year 1 of this program - $328,000,000 with a positive $32,800,000 return on investment.
2022 - Year 2 of this program - $688,000,000 with a positive $68,880,000 return on investment.
2023 - Year 3 of this program - $1,084,880,000 with a positive $108,488,000 return on investment.

By your third year investing only $1 tax dollar/year per American resident, you've now invested over a billion collectively into the stock market. It wouldn't take long for something like this to grow, all to the benefit of the economy and every American resident.

You don't think the U.S. government could recruit a big wig hedge fund manager to play with this type of money? I sure do.

 

I'm just entertaining an idea I haven't heard any U.S. politician suggest as a possible remedy to most American's economic concerns.

Perhaps when the next administration considers passing a multi-trillion dollar stimulus for Covid relief, they also put a portion of that money in a program like this which would be a positive return on investment.

If we already funnel hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars in other tax programs that are net negatives, what's the big deal of financing a modest $328,000,000 per year program that will only grow as the economy does, to the benefit of every American?

Also how is this not a GOP-centric idea? Politicians love talking about the rise of the stock market. This invests a modest amount of tax dollars into the stock market every year until the pool invested is so large it can be used to fund things like universal healthcare, home buying, and retirement for all American citizens. That's all it is. That's a ****ing bill House and Senate could both pass easily.