Ford School professor and director of Poverty Solutions, Luke Shaefer coauthored an article for the US News and World Report with Mona Hanna about how to end child poverty. They say the solution to the housing and childcare affordability crises "already exists – and it all starts with better supporting moms and babies."
The program, Rx Kids, which Shaefer helped create, "provides a one-time $1,500 payment to participating women during their pregnancy, then $6,000 – in monthly installments of $500 – for each month of their baby’s first year, or $7,500 in total." They write that the first year of life is "the most critical time for infant brain development, when the impacts of poverty can lead to lifelong chronic health outcomes."
"Now we have new, preliminary data that affirms Rx Kids is working," writes Shaefer.
"Stable housing is a critical pillar of a child’s early cognitive development and success in school," they write. Excitingly, they have found that "among Rx Kids participants in Flint, not a single family reported being evicted since childbirth." In addition to this, Shaefer says, "Rx Kids participants also felt more financially secure overall, and able to better afford the many costly baby expenses like childcare."
Their findings also show an increase in parental well-being. They saw "a nearly 10 percentage-point drop in mothers with a high depressive symptom score, a 6-point drop in mothers with a high anxiety score, and a 13-point increase in mothers who reported strong feelings of hope." Supporting moms and babies isn’t Democrat vs. Republican, said Shaefer, and "The expansion of the child tax credit has strong bipartisan support, and the same is true for Rx Kids."
"We’re already expanding to new cities in Michigan, and we’re getting calls from Mississippi, Ohio, and North Carolina asking how they can implement Rx Kids in their states," says Shaefer. They hope that soon, other parts of the country "can learn from Flint and do more to address affordability for our nation’s moms and babies."
