{"id":1932,"date":"2024-11-14T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-11-14T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/?p=1932"},"modified":"2024-11-14T10:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-11-14T10:00:00","slug":"after-congress-ended-extra-cash-aid-for-families-communities-tackle-child-poverty-alone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/?p=1932","title":{"rendered":"After Congress Ended Extra Cash Aid for Families, Communities Tackle Child Poverty Alone"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you bring a baby into the Hurley Children\u2019s Center clinic in downtown Flint, Michigan, Mona Hanna<\/a> will<\/em> find you. The pediatrician, who gained national prominence for helping uncover the city\u2019s water crisis in 2015, strode across the waiting room in her white lab coat, eyes laser-focused on the chubby baby in the lap of an unsuspecting parent.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cHi! I\u2019m Dr. Mona!\u201d she said warmly. \u201cAny chance you guys live in Flint?\u201d She learned the family is from neighboring Grand Blanc.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s so sad!\u201d Hanna said. \u201cYou should move to Flint! And have another baby! And you could be part of the Rx Kids program!\u201d The parents chuckled politely. But the doctor was not kidding.<\/p>\n

Billed as the first-ever citywide cash aid program for pregnant moms and babies, Rx Kids<\/a> gives Flint residents $1,500 mid-pregnancy, and $500 each month for the baby\u2019s first year. There are no strings attached. No income limits. And it\u2019s universal; nearly every baby born since the program launched in January is enrolled.<\/p>\n

Parents who bring their babies in for checkups at this clinic rattle off the ways the money has helped, from the cribs, diapers, clothes, and wipes they\u2019ve bought to how it\u2019s \u201ckept them afloat\u201d during maternity leave or provided crucial income when a spouse died.<\/p>\n

But the true goal of Rx Kids goes far beyond Flint, as Hanna acknowledged, scooping up one of the Rx Kids babies in an exam room. \u201cDo you think we should do this for babies everywhere? What do you think?\u201d she asked, cooing. The baby gurgled happily, smiling. \u201cThat was an affirmative yes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cash Payments as a Tool To Reduce Child Poverty<\/strong><\/p>\n

Many other countries<\/a>, including Austria<\/a>, Belgium<\/a>, Canada<\/a>, France<\/a>, Germany<\/a>, Ireland<\/a>, Norway<\/a>, Sweden<\/a>, and the United Kingdom<\/a>, already offer a child cash benefit<\/a>. The U.S. essentially did, too, during the coronavirus pandemic: The 2021 expanded child tax credit gave low- and middle-income families (including those previously excluded because of insufficient income) hundreds of dollars per kid in direct, monthly payments for six months.<\/p>\n

The child poverty rate fell to a historic low<\/a>. But the expanded program expired at the end of 2021<\/a> and Congress did not renew it. The child poverty rate went back up<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For Luke Shaefer<\/a>, director of the Poverty Solutions initiative at the University of Michigan\u2019s Ford School of Public Policy and a longtime advocate of child cash benefits, it was \u201cthe most brutal day\u201d of his career.<\/p>\n

Soon after, he got an email from Hanna asking if he wanted to collaborate on the program that would become Rx Kids. The program\u2019s goals go beyond cash aid for Michigan families: It is also aimed at getting donors, lawmakers, and voters excited about how child cash benefits could help their communities.<\/p>\n

The list of the recently converted includes Republican state Sen. John Damoose<\/a>, who has become an outspoken advocate<\/a> for expanding Rx Kids. Referring to himself as \u201ca pro-life person,\u201d Damoose said, \u201cI sure as heck better be concerned about making it easier for mothers to make the decision to have their children.\u201d He said the Republican Party needs to get serious about supporting programs like Rx Kids. \u201cWe\u2019ve been accused for years about being pro-birth, not pro-life. And I think that\u2019s not without merit. We need to put our money where our mouth is and support these children and support their mothers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Already, what once seemed like a moon shot is gaining traction: Shaefer and Hanna say their communications with Vice President Kamala Harris\u2019 presidential campaign helped shape Harris\u2019 \u201cbaby bonus\u201d proposal<\/a>. President-elect Donald Trump\u2019s campaign also supported expanding the child tax credit.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Michigan has budgeted some $20 million in state Temporary Assistance for Needy Families cash to partially fund an expansion of Rx Kids to a short list of communities, if those areas can raise local matching funds. Those areas include rural communities like Michigan\u2019s remote eastern Upper Peninsula, part of which is in Damoose\u2019s district<\/a>. \u201cWe want to make the tent as big as possible,\u201d Hanna said.<\/p>\n

But some Upper Peninsula health officials were initially wary. Each new Rx Kids community will need to raise millions of dollars in private donations to start and sustain the program in their community. \u201cIt could be a good thing,\u201d Leann Espinoza, maternal-infant health program manager for the eastern Upper Peninsula, said in August. \u201cBut I\u2019m not getting my hopes up. I know that sounds terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Upper Peninsula Families \u2018Fall Through the Cracks\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the wood-paneled rec room of the Clark Township Community Center, Espinoza broke the news to her team this summer: Rx Kids is not a program the eastern Upper Peninsula will be able to fund on its own.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about \u201c$3 million that we would need to raise,\u201d she said, looking at three other LMAS District Health Department<\/a> staff members.<\/p>\n

Tonya Winberg, the public health nurse for Mackinac County, looked stunned. \u201cIt\u2019s just, where does that $3 million come from?\u201d Winberg asked. Other potential Rx Kids expansion sites, like Kalamazoo<\/a>, have wealthy private foundations that can fund the program. The eastern Upper Peninsula does not.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd how do we sustain it?\u201d Espinoza added. \u201cWe hate to start programs, and then the funding is gone and we have to tell people, \u2018It\u2019s not here anymore; we can\u2019t do it anymore.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The ruggedly beautiful and densely forested Upper Peninsula is used to feeling forgotten. There\u2019s a running joke about how often it\u2019s mislabeled as Canada or Wisconsin<\/a> on maps. It has about a third of Michigan\u2019s land mass<\/a>, but just 3% of its residents. The sheer scale and sparse population mean options for food, housing, and child care are limited. Poverty rates are higher than the state average<\/a> in much of Espinoza\u2019s territory, and the region has some of the highest rates<\/a> of newborns suffering from prebirth drug exposure<\/a> in the state, according to the state health department.<\/p>\n

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At the community center, Espinoza and her colleagues start listing all the ways Rx Kids would be a lifesaver for families in the Upper Peninsula, many of whom have some income and some resources but \u201cdon\u2019t make enough to make it,\u201d Espinoza said. \u201cThe fall-through-the-cracks families. And those are the ones that I really, really, really think this program would benefit, especially up here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Espinoza\u2019s next meeting was with one of those families. Jessica Kline and her 18-month-old daughter, Aurora, live in Munising, a tourist town on Lake Superior. \u201cShe\u2019s got a big personality, and her hair is red, so she came with a warning label,\u201d Kline said of her daughter, laughing.<\/p>\n

Aurora is a tiny force, speeding around the family\u2019s apartment, unfazed by the nasal tube that connects her to an oxygen machine. She was born early, at just 24 weeks gestation, weighing less than 2 pounds. No hospital in the Upper Peninsula was equipped to care for a preemie that young. So Aurora and her parents spent seven months at a hospital in Ann Arbor, five hours south of their home. \u201cWe didn\u2019t have a reliable vehicle,\u201d Kline said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t have a source of income.\u201d Hospital social services provided $19 a day for food, which Kline would save up to buy supplies for Aurora.<\/p>\n

When they finally got Aurora home to the Upper Peninsula, their house had been vandalized, the copper pipes stripped out. Espinoza\u2019s team helped them find housing, and drove them to get groceries. Every day is a series of small battles, from finding the medical supplies Aurora needs to figuring out how to get to a revolving door of specialists hundreds of miles away. Still, Aurora\u2019s dad has a job in town. They\u2019ve got family nearby. They\u2019re making it work, Kline said.<\/p>\n

But having a program like Rx Kids could have made a huge difference in her daughter\u2019s first year. \u201cFive hundred dollars a month would have been enough to actually be able to get ourselves on our feet,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

After Espinoza left Kline\u2019s apartment, she drove south to her office in Manistique. It was late. Everyone else had gone home. Espinoza sat at her desk, trying to be pragmatic. She knows Rx Kids would not magically solve the lack of child care and housing and all the other things you need to break the cycle of poverty. But it would fix Kline\u2019s car. It would help.<\/p>\n

There will undoubtedly be critics, Espinoza said \u2014 people who believe parents will just use this money to buy drugs. \u201c\u2018What did they do to earn it?\u2019\u201d she imagined them saying. \u201c\u2018You\u2019re just giving them free money, and they didn\u2019t do anything to get it?\u2019 Because they don\u2019t understand. They don\u2019t understand the barriers. They don\u2019t understand that sometimes the choice isn\u2019t always yours. Like, I\u2019ve talked to moms who desperately want to go to work, and they want to support their family, but there\u2019s no child care. And so they have no other choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Espinoza recently got an update from Rx Kids\u2019 Hanna: Largely because of private foundations outside the Upper Peninsula, the program has raised enough money to fund a \u201cperinatal\u201d version of Rx Kids for five counties in the eastern Upper Peninsula. The perinatal program would provide the $1,500 payment mid-pregnancy, plus $500 a month for a baby\u2019s first three months, rather than the full year. \u201cBut the goal really is the full program, so we are still raising money,\u201d Hanna said via email.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s fantastic if we even just get the perinatal version to start,\u201d Espinoza said. \u201cThat\u2019s more than we had before.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article is from a partnership that includes <\/em>Michigan Public<\/em><\/a>, <\/em>NPR<\/em><\/a>, and <\/em>KFF Health News<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

KFF Health News<\/a> is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF\u2014an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF<\/a>.<\/p>\n

USE OUR CONTENT<\/h3>\n

This story can be republished for free (details<\/a>).<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you bring a baby into the Hurley Children\u2019s Center clinic in downtown Flint, Michigan, Mona Hanna will find you. The pediatrician, who gained national prominence for helping uncover the city\u2019s water crisis in 2015, strode across the waiting room in her white lab coat, eyes laser-focused on the chubby baby in the lap of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1933,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1932","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1932"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}