cash assistance

A new peer-reviewed study published in JAMA Pediatrics provides rigorous, population-level evidence that the Rx Kids program, the nation’s first community-wide prenatal and infant cash prescription program, is associated with substantial reductions i...

Poverty Solutions published their annual impact report detailing different policy areas they focused on and different milestones they reached in 2025.

Rx Kids, the nation’s first community-wide prenatal and infant cash program, has improved infant health, reduced evictions, and achieved a high return on investment. Now, with new state commitments, it will reach about one-third of all births statewi...

In August, Arnold Ventures awarded the Better Government Lab (BGL) an $800,000 grant to fund the completion of five studies that assess the causal effects of social policies meant to improve economic mobility in the United States. The project will be...

More than 1,300 babies and families in the city of Flint have received nearly $6 million in cash prescriptions since Rx Kids launched in January 2024. A birthday bash complete with cupcakes, coloring pages, and other birthday fun, was held Jan. 29 at...

Ford School professor and director of Poverty Solutions, Luke Shaefer said that “Investments in children pay dividends over the long term." He explained that during the pandemic, with the expanded child tax credit, “For that brief, shining moment, we...

Luke Shaefer, Detroit Free Press: “In a lot of our programs, especially cash assistance, some states make it much much much much harder to get benefits and some states make it easier,” said H. Luke Shaefer, director of Poverty Solutions and a profess...

Betsy Stevenson offered insights on the labor market and the road to post-pandemic recovery.  Talking about cash assistance programs during the pandemic with Slate, Stevenson said, “We made people better off by giving them money, and I know there...

A research study by Sandra K. Danziger, Sheldon Danziger, Kristin S. Seefeldt, and Luke Shaefer, "From welfare to a work‐based safety net: An incomplete transition," was published in the November 2015 edition of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Man...