The US town that pays every pregnant woman $1,500: 'We're not OK with our babies being born into poverty'

[WhiskeyGrinder]

10. .

HOWEVER, does anyone really believe that $7,500 is going to save a baby from poverty?

Poverty isn't an income level or certain physical markers. It's a constant grind of low-level demands that at some point you simply can't meet and then get swamped under. Adding a person to a household is hugely destabilizing, and easing the disruption has ripple effects even after the payments end. In one analysis, they found that no low-income families who participated in this program were evicted after childbirth. That's enormous.

Pediatrician Mona Hanna is being quite short-sighted if she thinks that once the formula is ingested, the diapers are discarded, and the crib is outgrown, the poverty has been solved. You don't "prescribe away poverty” with $7,500. It helps, but it solves nothing IMO.

The goal isn't to "solve" poverty. It's to ease the disruption that happens to every family after childbirth -- lost wages, childcare costs, physical demands. Because this country insists on patchwork aid for people in need rather than universal services, we do what we can. This is a large and helpful patch in the work.