Six months after a no-strings-attached cash aid program rolled out to pregnant people and infants in Flint, nearly 100% of babies born in the city during that time are now enrolled, with more than 832 families having received some $2 million.
“The number one goal of Rx Kids is to eliminate infant poverty,” said Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, a pediatrician and director of the Michigan State University-Hurley Children’s Hospital Pediatric Public Health Initiative. “And in Flint, the poorest city in the state of Michigan and one of the poorest in the nation, we are on track to eliminating infant poverty.”
Organizers say Rx Kids is the first citywide program of its kind in the United States. Every pregnant resident is eligible to receive $1500 mid-pregnancy as a “cash prescription,” plus another $500 a month for the first year of the baby’s life. There are no income restrictions. Any city resident is eligible. And families can spend the money however they want.
Now, other Michigan cities want in. And thanks to a $20 million appropriation in the most recent state budget proposal, about half a dozen communities could begin similar programs early next year. The eastern Upper Peninsula, Kalamazoo, Dearborn, Detroit, and other parts of Wayne County currently on the shortlist, Hanna-Attisha said. But first, those communities must raise private donations to supplement the public funding.
“For Flint, we've raised about $46 million in about a year and a half. Nobody said we could do it, and we did it. And that is enough money to run Rx kids in Flint for over four years,” she said. “To have this start in these other communities…we need other funders to come in and to be part of this program. And we're confident that we will get there.”
In Kalamazoo, a goal of raising $10 million
The idea of giving families direct payments isn’t new. During the pandemic, the U.S. expanded the 2021 Child Tax Credit to up to $3,600 per kid, and sent up to half that amount to eligible families in advance. That led to a “a historic reduction in poverty in the United States, particularly for children,” according to the Brookings Institute, and was directly responsible for lifting more than 2 million children above the poverty line.
But child poverty rates rebounded sharply after the expanded tax credit ended in 2022. If it had continued, “3 million additional children would have been kept out of poverty, preventing more than half of the 5.2 million increase in the number of children in poverty” in 2022, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Meanwhile, the idea of a universal income for families is becoming increasingly popular with groups like the Kalamazoo Community Foundation. The last 100 years of the “old model” (funders doling out grants to nonprofits, who in turn provide community services to people) just isn’t moving the needle, said Alyssa Stewart, the group’s chief community impact officer. “We're not seeing it create the systemic and sustainable change that we would like to see in our community,” she said “So what could we fundamentally do different about how we move our philanthropic resources and deploy those into the community?”
So they called anyone they could find who was experimenting with universal basic income - aka, “a universal, unconditional, individual, regular and cash payment,” according to the Stanford Basic Income Lab.
“We were talking to someone, I think in California, who said, ‘Oh, well, we're really excited about what we're hearing about Flint and Rx Kids.’ And we hadn't heard of Rx Kids yet,” Stewart said.
For the past eight months now, a group of about 30 people in Kalamazoo have been meeting regularly to explore expanding the program to their city, Stewart said. They brought in local hospitals, the county health department, doulas, home visitors, and infant and maternal health providers.
And this spring, the YWCA Kalamazoo surveyed about 100 participants in the Women and Infant Supportive Health (WISH) home visitation program. More than 70% of the expectant parents said they were worried about how their budgets would be impacted after the baby was born.
“I am not confident, because our total income reduced 40% due to lack of overtime [and] the rent goes higher,” one respondent said. “Daycares won’t accept my baby unless she is six weeks old so I’m not sure how I’m going to get a better job if I’m going to need a babysitter,” said another.
Asked what they would do with extra money, many said they would put it towards basic needs like food and housing.
“I stay with a friend right now but I’m going to need to get my own place,” one said. “I have 4 kids now.”
Others said they would put it towards getting out of debt, giving their kids more opportunities, or finding better childcare: “Getting my kids into learning opportunities in my community, with extra money I can do more activities with my children, and with more money my children and I can eat healthier,” another person said.
“Improve our quality of life by offering my kids better childcare where they learn something, not just leaving them with family,” said another respondent. Another person said, “I would just like for my family to be back without having any late bills. More family activities outside of the home that may cost money. For example, we enjoy going to the zoo.”
Now the focus is on finding the money. Kalamazoo would get about $1.5 million of the $20 million state funding allocated for expanding Rx Kids in the current budget proposal, Stewart said. They need an additional $4.8 million to run the program for a year, and want to have at least two years of funding set aside. That means they need to raise about $10 million. They’ve asked the city for help, Stewart said, and the Kalamazoo Community Foundation has pledged $500,000.
“Fundraising is going well,” Stewart said. “We are well on track. We are confident about our ability to reach the $10 million.”
