A cash aid program for moms and babies opened its application in Michigan’s largest city and will soon reach the state’s northernmost regions — continuing a rapid expansion of the initiative, which aims to quickly offer financial security to growing families, in both cities and rural pockets of the state.
The program, called Rx Kids, started in Flint two years ago and has grown to 29 Michigan communities —delivering nearly $24 million to more than 5,700 families. So far, organizers have reported better health outcomes for moms and infants, fewer concerns about housing instability among families that are part of Rx Kids, and are proposing Rx Kids in other states, including Hawaii.
Led by Dr. Mona Hanna who helped to expose the Flint water crisis, Rx Kids offers consistent cash payments to pregnant women during what can be an economically tumultuous period for families and a crucial time for a baby’s development. Through a combination of state and local government funding as well as philanthropic donations, Rx Kids offers $1,500 in assistance mid-pregnancy and then $500 a month for six or 12 months after birth, depending on the location.
The application process opened on Monday in the city of Detroit, and by early March, organizers expect to be operating the program across all 15 counties in the Upper Peninsula.
“Rx Kids is not charity, it is medicine. It is led by a doctor at a medical school, and this is what it looks like when we boldly improve health. It’s not a pill, it’s prevention. We give families a little bit of breathing room during pregnancy and infancy, when money is the tightest, because stress, housing, instability and hunger makes kids and communities sick,” Hanna, Rx Kids founder and associate dean of public health at the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine, said at the Detroit launch event on Monday, Feb. 9.
From Detroit to the UP
Newborn Detroiters – including babies born on the first day of the year – joined state and local officials on stage at the Bonstelle Playhouse, where renditions of “Baby Love” by the Supremes energized the packed room.
In Detroit, where nearly half of children under 5 years old live below the poverty level, the launch marks the program’s largest expansion. An estimated 8,000 babies are born in Detroit each year. Detroit moms must be at least 16 weeks pregnant or have a baby born this year, as of Jan. 1, 2026. Eligible Detroiters can apply atRxKids.org to get $1,500 before birth and $500 a month for their baby’s first six months.
“Too many of our babies are starting life early carrying the weight of financial hardship before they even take their first steps and that is why this administration is moving with urgency,” said Detroit Mayor Mary Sheffield. As of 9 a.m., 743 Detroiters had already applied for Rx Kids, she said.
The program’s launch in Rx Kids is consistent with initiatives Sheffield has begun since she took office, such as reorganizing city departments to better tackle poverty and homelessness and bringing in national experts — including Rx Kids co-founder Luke Shaefer — to lead the charge.
Up North, Rx Kids started a UP presence nearly a year ago and is slated to expand across all 15 counties in the region, starting March 2.
“Whether you’re a baby born in the 313 or the 906, you get to benefit from this. Whether they’re deep in Lion’s country or they live closer to Lambeau Field, they will get to benefit from this, whether they live in our biggest city or our smallest town. At a time of so much national economic and uncertainty, we’re showing up and we’re putting money back in the pockets of people who need it most,” said Gov. Gretchen Whitmer at the event.
In the northernmost part of the state, where tourism drives the economy, the Free Press previously reported on the financial challenges families encounter. Lulls in employment during the offseason can make income less certain. Heat can be tough to afford because of how far fuel must travel to meet the needs of residents. Housing, too, is a challenge with demand for vacation homes and rental properties influencing the market. Hospitals and medical centers can be far flung, making even routine visits to doctors’ offices a challenge.
How it works
Rx Kids focuses on areas with high need — measured by child poverty and maternal and infant health — but is open to moms regardless of income. Early research has shown promising outcomes, including a drastic drop in evictions and fewer preterm births and neonatal intensive care unit admissions.
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation invested $1 million to Rx Kids overall for research and evaluation of the program and is planning to provide another $1 million for Detroit, specifically, said Marijata Daniel-Echols, a program officer who leads the foundation’s Detroit team. She emphasized the importance of philanthropic support to invest in “innovation” and models for larger society to adopt as a public good.
“In a place like Detroit, where half of its youngest children are poor, something has to be done and we make choices in our programs and policies all the time, so we can choose to do something about poverty,” Daniel-Echols told the Free Press. “We can choose to endorse programs and policies that are connecting families to resources in ways that it (meets) their immediate need but also could put them on a trajectory that is different from where they are now.”
Since launching in Flint two years ago, Hanna said Rx Kids has raised nearly $400 million in state, federal, municipal and philanthropic funds. Organizers raised $12 million for Detroit alone.
So far, Rx Kids has received $306.5 million in state appropriations, for the 2024 to 2026 fiscal years, from the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program and the Healthy Michigan Fund.
Rx Kids is led by Michigan State University, where Hana works. It has contracted with Give Directly, a non profit that specializes in cash delivery programs intended to alleviate poverty to administer the program. About 85% of funding from the state goes to recipients, 5% backs program operations at MSU and GiveDirectly and 10% goes toward overhead such as IT, accounting and compliance, according to the Rx Kids website.
Rx Kids has garnered bipartisan support though House Speaker Matt Hall, R-Richland Township, has alleged the program gives payments to non-citizens.
“We love every single baby but this is a public-private partnership, so we have non-state dollars that support babies who may not be here with legal status,” Hanna said.
The research, so far
Families in the Rx Kids program have reported that they used their cash on baby supplies, food, rent and utilities, and have felt more financially security because they’re a part of the program.
In September, leaders of Rx Kids released research papers evaluating how the program affects economic stability, maternal mental health and birth outcomes in Flint, where roughly a third of the population lives below poverty.
Among the findings in one report: Evictions fell by about 91% among Rx Kids-eligible Flint moms in 2024 after childbirth, compared with Flint women who had babies the year before. Postpartum depression declined, too, from 46% to 33%. Rx Kids was also associated with a reduction in neonatal intensive care admissions, down 29% or 68 fewer admissions during the study period, another report found.
Researchers have also been tracking and estimating early outcomes of Rx Kids. An analysis released in October from the Kalamazoo-based W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research of the Flint program, for instance, found that Rx Kids could add between 100 to 200 jobs in Michigan a year because it increases household spending.
Rx Kids is among dozens of cash assistance programs of varying types across the United States, often designed to tackle poverty and spur economic stability. Researchers of a two-year Ann Arbor guaranteed income pilot program — which provided $528 a month to 100 low-income entrepreneurs, small business owners and gig workers starting in 2024 — found that participants mostly used their payments the first year on basic needs such as food, household supplies and housing costs, such as rent and mortgage. However, the study didn’t find statistically significant differences in food, housing and utility security between those who received the monthly payments and those who did not, with researchers citing the cost of living in Ann Arbor and inflation as possible reasons why.
Studies about both programs add to growing research on the effectiveness of cash aid across the country, including one called Baby’s First Years where researchers did not find differences on several child development outcomes between low-income moms who received $333 a month and those who got $20 a month for the first years of their children’s lives. Researchers of that study mention multiple explanations for this, such as the size of the cash aid and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rx Kids responded with a post on its website at the time suggesting that cash assistance programs for families require scale to make a difference and that Rx Kids has no income requirement, offers higher amounts than those in the study and starts earlier.
More on Rx Kids
The program is currently open to eligible participants from counties in the eastern Upper Peninsula and the west side of the state to metro Detroit. Expectant moms, who are at least 16 weeks pregnant, can get a one-time $1,500 payment and then $500 a month for the first year of their infant’s life, ranging from six to 12 months depending on their location.
For more information, go to https://rxkids.org/.
Reach reporter Nushrat Rahman at nrahman@freepress.com.