Widespread, systemic problems like child poverty and financial insecurity require widespread, systemic solutions. The child tax credit is a great place to start.
While flowers and breakfast in bed are lovely ways to thank the mothers in our lives for all they do, beneath the surface lies a hard truth: Our country is failing its mothers.
In 2021, in response to COVID-19, Congress directed an influx of money to crucial social services, including funding specifically for mothers and children. Thanks to the expanded child tax credit (CTC), child poverty declined by 46 percent in 2021. Its expiration caused a drastic spike in poverty in 2022, undoing its incredible progress.
At the beginning of 2024, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a $78 billion tax legislation that included the expanded CTC, but this has since stalled in the Senate. Giving unconditional cash to mothers showed us just how transformative unrestricted financial aid and support for mothers can be—so why don’t we sustain these kinds of investments in families?
In the absence of public sector support, nonprofit organizations across the country are stepping in to fill the void, getting cash to low-income mothers and their babies with promising results. Launched in New York in 2021 by The Monarch Foundation, The Bridge Project invests directly and flexibly in early childhood with an aim to break the cycle of stress and poverty passed down generationally and to enhance socioeconomic mobility of families. The Bridge Project provides low-income, pregnant individuals with unconditional cash for the first three years of their child’s life to spend on whatever is needed to keep mom and baby healthy and stable—be it food, formula, rent, childcare, diapers, or any number of other surprise expenses that come with parenting.
With philanthropic support from the Zilber Family Foundation, a new cohort of 100 mothers in Milwaukee, Wis., will begin receiving unrestricted cash payments in early June, marking The Bridge Project’s first expansion outside of New York State and the City of Milwaukee’s first unrestricted cash transfer program.
By providing mothers with unrestricted cash, The Bridge Project helps provide a stable start to a child’s life, which contributes to positive lifelong and even generational outcomes. After just six monthly payments of $1,000, The Bridge Project’s New York City participants reported increased financial stability and demonstrated a 63 percent increase in utilizing outside childcare. Any mother knows that access to childcare unlocks crucial opportunities—to get to work, interview for a job, attend school, see the doctor, or simply tend to the daily responsibilities of raising a family.
While philanthropic programs like The Bridge Project are making meaningful strides in alleviating child poverty and providing support to mothers and families, they cannot substitute robust federal action.
Unfortunately, the prohibitively high cost of childcare means many moms are locked out of full participation in the economy. According to a survey conducted by Care.com, in 2024 the average weekly daycare cost for an infant in the U.S. is $321 a week—more than $16,000 annually for one child and a 13 percent increase from 2022.
Unconditional cash support has revealed no negative impact on employment. The flexibility of a cash safety net empowers mothers to make choices—now she can take an hour off of work to interview for a better paying job without fear of missing the rent or putting food on the table. Cash transfers offer stability and a pathway to economic mobility.
Investing in mothers and babies is good for everybody. The National Bureau of Economic Research estimates that permanently expanding the child tax credit would cost $97 billion per year and generate social benefits of $982 billion per year. In other words, prevention pays dividends.
While philanthropic programs like The Bridge Project are making meaningful strides in alleviating child poverty and providing support to mothers and families, they cannot substitute robust federal action. Congress must prioritize the well-being of families by expanding access to affordable childcare, implementing paid family leave policies, and sustaining the CTC.
It’s time to bridge the gap between rhetoric and reality, between the lip service paid to motherhood and the tangible support needed to empower mothers and families. No baby should go without food and shelter, especially in the richest country in the world. By prioritizing effective and evidence-based social programs in state and federal budgets, we can move toward a shared prosperity that benefits everyone.
Our appreciation for the mothers in our lives should extend beyond a single Sunday in May. If children are the future, then mothers play an integral role in creating a better, more equitable world.
Our partnership with The Bridge Project is working to fill this void in Milwaukee, but these organizations alone cannot meet the massive need. Widespread, systemic problems like child poverty and financial insecurity require widespread, systemic solutions. We must call on Congress to make meaningful investments in social safety nets, like the expanded child tax credit, to uplift families and make financial security, family wellbeing, and thriving futures possible.
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