Wayne County commissioners greenlit $7.5 million to help launch a cash aid initiative for moms and babies in six communities: River Rouge, Inkster, Highland Park, Hamtramck, Melvindale and Dearborn.
The approval means the Rx Kids program kicks off in those cities on Monday, Nov. 10. The move comes on the heels of the rapidly expanding program receiving $270 million in the state budget — setting it up to potentially help tens of thousands more infants in the next few years — and further grows Rx Kids to several communities of high need in Michigan’s most populous county.
“Every baby deserves a strong start. When we invest in moms and babies, we give families hope, support and a chance to build a better future,” Wayne County Executive Warren Evans said in a statement to the Free Press in response to the commissioners’ Thursday, Nov. 6, approval of the Rx Kids program.
Rx Kids, which offers $1,500 mid-pregnancy and then $500 a month up to a year of the baby’s life, already operates in 11 communities around Michigan.
In Wayne County, eligible mothers would get the one-time payment of $1,500 — once they confirm pregnancy — and then monthly $500 payments during the first months of their baby’s life, or $4,500 in total, according to Kennyle Johnson, interim director of the Wayne County Department of Health, Human and Veterans Services. The money is flexible and can be used how the family sees fit — for food, diapers, housing, transportation and caregiving, she told commissioners.
“This program will be launched in the areas of highest need within Wayne County, where families face disproportionate economic and health challenges,” she said, and will be available to residents in the six designated communities.
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Though Rx Kids focuses on areas with high need — measured by child poverty and maternal and infant health — it is open to moms regardless of income. That was a point of concern for some commissioners.
“It’s a universal program and if a person is living in any of these six cities — in any of the six poorest cities that we’ve identified — and they make $1 million they can apply. But again, will they apply? Chances are that they won’t,” Johnson said.
The program could grow to other communities in Wayne County. Commissioners approved about $7.5 million through Dec. 31, 2028, with a one-year option to renew. An additional $5 million will come from the state.
“If the money is exhausted in the first year … we’ll have to determine how to move forward, but I will say that there will be a significant amount of state funds and TANF dollars being used to support this program and so we don’t anticipate that happening at all,” Johnson said. TANF refers to the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.
Rx Kids is also slated to launch in the city of Ypsilanti — offering $1,500 during pregnancy and $500 a month until six months of the infant’s life — on Dec. 1.
Rx Kids, which started in Flint nearly two years ago, has so far distributed more than $17 million to about 3,900 families, as of Tuesday, Nov. 4. The program is open to eligible participants from counties in the eastern Upper Peninsula and the west side of the state to parts of metro Detroit, and has garnered tens of millions in public and private dollars as well as bipartisan interest from lawmakers.
Early studies show promise.
An analysis released last month from the Kalamazoo-based W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research of the Flint program found that Rx Kids could add between 100 to 200 jobs in Michigan a year because it increases household spending.
In September, leaders of Rx Kids released research papers evaluating how the program affects economic stability, maternal mental health and birth outcomes in Flint, the city where the program first began and where roughly a third of the population lives below poverty. Researchers found a drastic drop in evictions and fewer preterm births and neonatal intensive care unit admissions.
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.
Reach reporter Nushrat Rahman at nrahman@freepress.com.