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Task force hears Rx Kids evidence, staff recommends a Washington pilot with $2,000 prenatal payment and 5,000‑family evaluation minimum
Summary
Dr. Mona Hanna presented evidence from Michigan’s Rx Kids direct‑cash program (lower preterm births, fewer NICU admissions, large reductions in evictions); Washington staff described a feasibility study and recommended a pilot design of $2,000 prenatal plus $675/month postnatal, with a minimum sample of 5,000 moms and babies and priority sites in Yakima, southwest Washington, and northeastern clusters.
Dr. Mona Hanna, a pediatrician and founder of the Rx Kids program, told the Legislative Executive Workforce Poverty Reduction Oversight Task Force that Rx Kids delivers place‑based cash supports to pregnant people and infants and has generated measurable improvements in health and housing stability.
At the virtual meeting, Dr. Hanna said Rx Kids began in Flint and has scaled to dozens of Michigan communities. “We are now the largest anti‑poverty program of its kind in the country,” she said, reporting that the program has prescribed more than $33 million to over 9,000 families and shown near‑universal take‑up. She described published and pending results: increased prenatal‑care utilization (reported in JAMA Open Network), reductions in low birth weight and preterm births, an approximately 30 percent drop in NICU admissions, and large reductions in eviction filings. She emphasized that the intervention pairs a prenatal lump sum with…
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