One of the country’s leading welfare-to-work evaluation organizations has looked at the results of and is helping to tweak a unique, privately funded cash transfer program that ties receipt of benefits to certain outcomes, including children’s education and family preventative health care.
The Family Rewards Program, as it has been dubbed, is the first comprehensive conditional cash transfer program of its kind to be offered in a developed country. Its initial launch in New York City provided cash assistance to low-income families to reduce immediate hardship for three years. Families received the money only if they met certain milestones, such as children’s attendance in school, preventive health care, and parents’ employment. On average, families received $8,700 over the three-year period.
The pilot program ran from 2007-2010 and showed mixed results. Researchers found that it reduced current poverty and material hardship, including hunger and some housing-related hardships, but these effects weakened when the cash transfers ended. The program also helped parents increase savings. It did not improve school outcomes for elementary or middle school students but high school students who were academically proficient readers when they began the program had positive outcomes.
Building on early lessons from the program, the Center for Economic Opportunity (the program’s founded) and the Manpower Demonstration Research Center (the program evaluator) have launched Family Rewards 2.0., which includes a focus on 9th and 10th grade students only, fewer rewards but more frequent disbursements, and one-on-one family guidance. (The original model provided no services, just the cash incentives.) The program will continue to be evaluated.
Click here to read the latest report on the program.
