Rx Kids launched their pilot this January 2024 where every person who gives birth in Flint, MI will receive a basic income during late stage pregnancy, $1,500 (lump-sum), and the first year of their baby’s life, $500 each month.
What’s so exciting about this pilot?!
- Rx Kids is a universal program for all new parents and their babies in Flint, MI. This is one of the few universal programs of its kind, where everyone of a specific demographic, in a specific geographical area, gets the money. This truly paves the way for scaling to state level, where we could imagine every new baby born in a state receiving basic income for the first years of their life.
- The funding for this program is also important – it includes public funding from TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families). TANF is federal block grants allocated to states who then decide how to disburse the money. This use of TANF funds provides a model for other pilots to use these public dollars moving forward, an important new development as the American Rescue Plan dollars that funding many pilots during the pandemic runs out.
