Researchers ‘surprised’ by what happened when low-income moms received regular cash payments — with no strings attached
“The poverty rate for children under six being raised by single dads is nearly equivalent to the national poverty rate for all children under six, but the poverty rate for children that age being raised by single moms is three times higher than the national rate, according to 2020 data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
That disparity is part of what inspired nine researchers to launch an experiment called Baby’s First Years, to study whether giving low-income mothers regular cash payments early on in their children’s lives could make a difference. Their evidence, documented over the course of a year, strongly suggests that it can.
The researchers found that infants whose mothers received $333 per month ‘had more high-frequency brain activity’ — a sign of better language development and brain development — compared with infants whose mothers received $20 per month.”