About Rx Kids
More potent than any prescribed pill, Rx Kids aims to improve health, hope, and opportunity. Science demonstrates the lifelong consequences of early adversity but also the promise of science-based, community-driven solutions. For many families, income plunges and poverty spikes right before a child is born and remains high throughout the first year. Built on the tremendous success of the expanded Child Tax Credit, which cut child poverty to its lowest level in recorded history, and in line with global evidence, Rx Kids boldly reimagines how we care for each other by walking alongside families during the challenging time of pregnancy and infancy.
The science is clear.
Evidence shows that no-strings-attached cash has immediate and long-term positive impacts. Rx Kids will build on this by looking at how cash prescriptions:
- Improve maternal and infant health in the areas of mortality/morbidity, postpartum depression, and breastfeeding.
- Could help in bettering early childhood health through things like lead screening, immunization, early literacy, and stress reduction.
- Improve adult health through physical and mental health, happiness/hope/dignity – as well as reductions in parental stress, partner violence, and may even reduce substance abuse.
- Could improve greater access to health processes like baby well checks, maternal-infant support programs, enrichment activities – and decreasing involvement of child protective services.
- Help families meet their basic needs like food security and housing stability can buffer families against the highest-in-the-life course increase in poverty that accompanies childbirth.
What does the research on cash say?
- Hundreds of studies show that unconditional cash transfers can be life-changing across countries and contexts. Mothers and babies are no different, and early intervention is shown to have sustained health and development impacts years after cash is delivered.
- Healthier pregnancies: Multiple studies have found positive impacts of cash on birth weight, premature births, and breastfeeding, parental mental health, and food security.
- Improved early development: New research shows that $333 monthly cash transfers to low-income families boosted infants’ early cognitive development.
- Impact lasts into adulthood: Years after their moms received cash transfers, adult children experienced benefits across health, education, and nutrition, lifetime earnings, and reduced anxiety and depression.
- The 2021 Expanded Child Tax Credit lifted millions of families out of poverty and drove child poverty to a record low of 5.2 percent.
- Evidence shows numerous additional benefits to no-strings-attached cash, including reduced food insecurity and financial hardship, improved health for children and parents, better school performance, and reduced incidence of child abuse. Benefits extend into adulthood and far exceed the cost of the expanded tax credit.
