How can we help improve the lives of children? Does this mean donating money to their family or providing in-kind goods or services (eg, free education, health care, food stamps, housing)? Should any transfers in cash or in kind be made unconditionally or based on certain conditions (for example, a requirement to attend school)?Many other countries provide cash transfers to families with children, as do charities give directlybut this approach is less common in the U.S. Examples of these pre-U.S. experiments include:
- Canada Negative Income Tax (NIT): Minimum Income in Manitoba (1974-1979)
- Ontario Basic Income Pilot (OBIP) randomizes low-income participants to monthly cash transfers in Ontario, Canada (launched 2017)
- Dutch child benefit – depends on the age and number of children in the family, not on income
- Spanish Baby Bonus: a one-time transfer to all Spanish mothers after birth (started in 2007)
- The BMINCOME experiment in Spain (Barcelona), modeled on Canada’s Mincome, randomly assigned 1,000 low-income individuals to either receive around €1,700 per month or no cash transfers
- Finnish National Basic Income Experiment (2017-2018)
most recent work paper Shah and Genetien (2023) Scoping review of the unconditional cash transfer program for families with children.
Unlike the United States, dozens of low- and middle-income countries have used conditional or unconditional direct cash transfers as a major policy strategy, showing positive effects across a range of economic and health measures, as well as specific aspects of child health and schooling. This article reviews We review the economic research on US safety net programs and cash assistance to families with children, and what existing research reveals about their impact on household investment mechanisms and child outcomes…We then review nine contemporary unconditional cash transfer programs…
The table below summarizes these programs.Can view table in larger format here.
- payment scale: Transfer amounts ranging from $1,000 per month to $150 every three months.
- The number of participants: Generally between 30 and 1000, most projects are at the level of 100-200 people
- statistical identification: 4 of 9 are using randomized controlled trial designs
- qualified: have different income thresholds (1x federal poverty level, 2x below fixed amount [<$52k]), some are limited to parents with children, while others give money to any pregnant woman.
