Newborn infants in Rhode Island will leave the hospital with two things: a birth certificate and bank account.
Starting this month, the Ocean State is streamlining an existing college savings program known as CollegeBoundBaby. Since the initiative’s start in 2010, enrolled infants each receive $100 in a 529 savings plan from Rhode Island, but it’s been highly underutilized due to a unwieldy application that required parents to supply multiple pages of information and pick an investment strategy. As a result, only 400 families enrolled, according to the Providence Journal.
But now, parents can now sign up the day their child is born by simply checking a box on the birth certificate form, a small fix that the newly elected governor hopes will boost the program’s reach.
“The system now requires parents to take the initiative to open an account,” says Governor Gina Raimondo, the state’s first female governor. “With this program, before the parents leave the hospital, all they have to do is put an X in the right box and boom, the account will be set up.”
Here’s why this simplification matters: More than one-third of all Americans have no money in savings and even fewer have funds stored away for college. Many low-income youth will leave college burdened by debt, if they choose to attend at all. State governments like Connecticut and a cluster of nonprofits are aiming to change that by incentivizing families to open 529 accounts by fronting the initial seed deposit. (It’s worth noting that there can be cons to putting money in a 529 plan, so families should always look at the specifics before investing.)
The small cash incentive not only provides some economic certainty, it also forces the parents to think about long-term financial planning and sets goals to which young people can aspire. It’s proven to work. Studies show children with dedicated savings for higher education are seven times as likely to attend college. (For those not seeking a B.A., money in 529 accounts can be used to pay for trade, technical or vocational school; if not used by age 25, it reverts back to a state’s education fund.) Even beyond the benefits that come with a college degree like higher job earnings, one study found that just having a bank account aids children’s social and emotional development and correlates with optimism and decreased depression for the children’s mothers.
“From the research, we know that kids who have a college savings account, regardless of the amount, are much more likely to get an education beyond high school and graduate,” says Raimondo, a Democrat who previously served as Rhode Island’s state treasurer. “Some think it is because they have the money. The real reason is they know they are college material. It changes the way they think about themselves.”
Because the underlying principle is that families can advance themselves through smart fiscal planning, college savings accounts have bipartisan appeal to both Republicans and Democrats, Andrea Levere, president of the Corporation for Enterprise Development, notes in a New York Times op-ed. The accounts have a number of models — publicly funded, donor-supported or a mix — but so far, they haven’t taken off widely: only about 200,000 young kids have the potential to receive seed money for one instead of the millions who should have access, Levere says.
Rhode Island’s streamlining of the process could improve the national model. According to Margaret Clancy, policy director at Washington University’s Center for Social Development in St. Louis, where researchers first posited college accounts in 1991, this initiative makes Rhode Island one of only three states promising universal savings accounts. Nevada starts every kindergartner with a $50 deposit, and Maine recently switched their $500 grants from opt-in to opt-out, automatically applying to every infant.
“Everybody thinks their child will grow up to be President of the United States or go to college when they’re born, but what we see is that at age 4, those goals have decreased in a lot of people’s mindsets,” Clancy tells NationSwell. Children never develop a “college-bound identity,” then financial and academic preparation fall by the wayside. Universal sign-ups, which have proven to enroll 18 times as many families as would sign up voluntarily, Clancy notes, are the most efficient way to set babies crawling in the right direction.
Raimondo admits this largely bureaucratic change is “hard and unsexy work,” but she believes “it’s going to really change people’s behavior. Small changes like this can have big, powerful impacts.”
Tag: Families
How Texting Can Improve the Health of Babies Born to Low-Income Mothers
Some app designers are now thinking beyond the traditional targets for their products and are focusing on how technology can help the poor instead.
As we’ve pointed out, Significance Labs sponsors three-month fellowship for entrepreneurs and software engineers as develop technology that serves the poor. (Twenty-five million American families live on less than $25,000 a year, yet 80 percent of low-income Americans own some kind of mobile device, according to Significance Labs’s website.)
One tool that reaches low-income Americans is Text4Baby, which can help expectant low-income and teenage mothers give birth to healthy babies, writes Jill Duffy for PC Magazine.
Text4Baby is a free service that sends pregnant women and new moms text-sized bits of wisdom and advice to support their health and parenting skills. The messages, which are available in either Spanish or English, are also tailored according to the zip code of the mother and the due date of the baby or age of the child.
The texts include health notices, such as the importance of cooking meat thoroughly and wearing a seat belt, descriptions of symptoms that shouldn’t be ignored and developmental updates as the baby grows. Texts also inform pregnant women when to schedule their next prenatal appointment and ask about blood tests they took in prior appointments.
These small, regular reminders, such as, “Even if U feel great, a pregnant woman needs checkups with a Dr./midwife (CNM/CM). For help with costs, call 800-311-2229,” can be a powerful tool for women with limited resources and support. Text4Baby messages also include information to help women access the necessary healthcare.
Tamara Grider, the director of marketing and communications for Text4Baby, says that while the service isn’t exclusively for low-income mothers, “We do put effort into [reaching them] and that includes women who are low-income, women who are African-American and Hispanic. We definitely have a target audience because we know where the need is the greatest, for one, and because of the infant mortality rate among ethnic groups.”
The National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition runs Text4Baby and collects no information from users beyond their zip code and the baby’s due date. It’s anonymous and easy to use for anyone with a cell phone — regardless of manufacturer.
Users can benefit from a number of special programs, such as a current promotion that offers free flu shots for all Text4Baby users at RiteAid.
Grider tells Duffy that the reminders help because lower-income people “have a lot to worry about. A lot of our moms who are low income or younger moms, for them it’s kind of like insurance: ‘I don’t know what I don’t know. But if I need to know something, Text4Baby is going to tell me.'”
It all adds up to a tech solution that is GR8 for low-income moms.
MORE: Where Helping the Poor Comes Before Innovating for the Privileged
Setting Politics Aside, Americans Are Stepping Up to Help Migrant Kids
A new Gallup Poll finds that the issue of immigration has become the number one national concern of Americans. And while there’s no legislative solution in sight to cope with the massive influx of refugee children fleeing Central American gang violence and arriving in the states that border Mexico, individuals across the country are putting partisan issues aside in the face of this humanitarian crisis, coming up with ways to help.
In San Francisco, 17-year-old high school student Julia Tognotti has been working tirelessly to collect clothing for the detained children ever since she saw a documentary on the crisis in her Spanish class last May. After school recessed for summer vacation, she traveled to Nogales, Texas, and volunteered in a shelter for the migrant kids.
“I talked to a boy there on the first day named Brian. He was 17 and I’m 17 and he was from Honduras and it took him two months to get to Mexico and he took seven trains. And I was so surprised to hear this because it really made me think, ‘could I do this?'” she told Sergio Quintana of ABC 7 News San Francisco.
Tognotti has collected two loads of clothes to send to Nogales and is planning to continue her work, accepting donations in Brisbane, California. She also hopes to organize a trip to the border for more teenagers to learn about the issue. Julia’s father David Tognotti told Quintana that the family doesn’t want to get “tangled up in the politics of the issue,” they just want to help the kids.
“We have a 17-year-old that’s trying to do what she believes is right to help people and it would be great if we could help support her.”
Meanwhile, the Hispanic Heritage Foundation (HHF), a Washington, D.C.-based national organization promoting Latino leadership, organized a trip for concerned people to volunteer at a refugee shelter run by Sacred Heart Church in McAllen, Texas. Actress America Ferrara, best known as the title character in “Ugly Betty,” joined the mission, reading books to the kids. HHF has also donated clothes, toys, books, and tablet computers.
In New York, La Casa Azul Bookstore is coordinating a book drive to supply migrant kids who arrive at shelters in the New York City area with free reading material. They’re looking for new and gently-used books in Spanish for kids and are offering a 10 percent discount to anyone who buys such books at their store. La Casa Azul will collect the books through August 10 and personally deliver them to children and teenagers in need.
As the actions of these caring Americans demonstrate, we don’t have to wait for government action before we reach out to help another human being.
MORE: Meet the Volunteers Bringing Relief to the Humanitarian Crisis in the Southwest
This Program Has Been Keeping Low-Income Babies and Their Moms Healthy for Decades
As the endless supply of child-rearing advice books suggest, having a trusted source to help you face the challenges of motherhood certainly helps.
Back in the 1970s, University of Colorado pediatrics professor David Olds worked at an inner-city daycare center and was struck by the enormous odds faced by low-income babies and their mothers. They died far more often than babies from higher income families, and it was difficult for their mothers to travel to clinics that might offer them assistance. Olds wondered if sending nurses out to educate low-income mothers and socialize with the families in their homes would help. Out of this notion, the Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) was born.
Dr. Olds began testing his program in Elmira, New York; Memphis and Denver to see if it worked in different populations of low-income mothers and babies. The resounding answer? Yes. So in 1996, after testing and adjusting the program, Dr. Olds began to share it with communities across the country. Then in 2003, the Nurse-Family Partnership National Service Office opened its doors.
A recent 20-year study confirms that participation in NFP among low-income families in Memphis reduced the mortality rate from preventable deaths such as SIDS, injuries, and homicides from 1.6 percent to zero. Meanwhile, mothers in the control group who didn’t receive visits from nurses were three times more likely to die than those who did talk regularly with nurses from NFP.
“Death among mothers and children in these age ranges in the U.S. general population is rare but of enormous consequence,” Dr. Olds told Ana B. Ibarra of the Merced Sun Star. “The high rates of death among mothers and children not receiving nurse-home visits reflect the toxic conditions faced by too many low-income parents and children in our society.”
NFP nurse visits begin during pregnancy, educating mothers-to-be about how to stay healthy before and after their babies are born. Studies suggest that this engagement reduces doctor and hospital visits due to injury in kids under age 2 by 56 percent, reduces smoking in mothers by 25 percent, brings child abuse down by 48 percent and even lowers the number of convictions when these children grow up — bringing that rate down by a whopping 69 percent.
In California, NFP currently serves 21 counties, targeting first-time low-income mothers (especially teen mothers), and the program works so well that the California Department of Public Health hopes to expand it to all 58 counties in the state.
Clearly, for those mothers with the fewest financial resources and very little emotional support, visits from a caring, knowledgable nurse can make all the difference — in not only their health, but the wellness of their children, too.
MORE: How Jobs Give Low-Income Mothers More Than A Financial Boost
Could Direct Payments Break the Cycle of Poverty?
A sad fact: Poverty in America is increasing.
Currently, 20 percent of children in the U.S. grow up in poverty. That’s 16 million kids struggling to get by. And sadly, the percentage of poor kids in this country continues to grow.
What to do about this problem is a hotly debated question. Some advocate universal preschool, while others vote to improve access to affordable housing.
One economist has offered a somewhat radical proposal: Austin Nichols of The Urban Institute writes that we could reduce child poverty levels to 10 percent by providing each kid with a $400 monthly stipend. Added to that, Nichols believes that if one member of a poor family received employment, earning just $15,000 a year, the poverty rate would drop to 1 percent.
The idea isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds — many countries have such programs. Germany provides $250 per child each month to families, Japan gives $130 per child monthly, and the U.K. ponies up $140 for each child every month. Interestingly, most of these benefits go to all families with children, not just poor families.
Lane Anderson of Deseret News looked into whether such cash transfer programs work. The findings? A study by the World Bank and GiveDirectly.com suggests they do. For instance, when low-income Kenyans received a stipend, they reported gains in assets and general well-being and decreases in hunger.
The Urban Institute estimates that poverty-related expenses cost the U.S. $550 billion per year. Nichols’s proposal would cost just $76 billion annually, according to an article in TalkPoverty written by Zach McDade of the Urban Institute. In theory, this would save the U.S. hundreds of millions of dollars currently spent on child poverty.
McDade writes, “Dramatically reducing poverty is in fact the financially prudent thing to do, and helping 16 million American children out of poverty is the moral thing to do as well.”
In recent years we’ve seen many examples of how housing-first programs are saving states and cities money by reducing chronic homelessness. Could a cash-benefit program for poor kids have a similar effect?
MORE: Here’s Why We Should be Investing in Single Moms
Born in Prison Herself, She’s Helping Women Break the Incarceration Cycle
If you believe your tween and teen years were difficult, think again.
When she was just 11 years old, Deborah Jiang Stein discovered a letter containing an explosive secret that her adoptive parents hid from her. The letter detailed the fact that Jiang Stein was born not only to an incarcerated mother, but addicted to heroin herself. Plus, she learned that she spent the first year of her life behind bars.
Traumatized by this revelation, Jiang Stein led tumultuous teenage years during which she was addicted to drugs, committed robberies and smuggled drugs. When she witnessed an acquaintance stab a man, Jiang Stein vowed to turn her life around. And she did just that — reconnecting with her adoptive parents, earning a college degree, and writing the memoirs Even Tough Girls Wear Tutus: Inside the World of a Woman Born in Prison and Prison Baby.
Jiang Stein’s birth in prison is sadly, not unusual — according to Sherry Amatenstein of TruthAtlas, seven to 10 percent of all incarcerated women are pregnant, and 70 percent of the children of incarcerated women one day end up in prison themselves. According to Jiang Stein’s website, three percent of American kids have a parent in prison.
Jiang Stein, who is now in her fifties, has dedicated her life to connecting with imprisoned women and teaching them they have value and can still turn their lives around. She travels the country giving seminars and leading writing workshops for incarcerated females. “Women in prison are a disappeared group, and the majority is sentenced for substance abuse and domestic violence offenses,” she told Amatenstein. “I want people to notice these women are not scary. They are wounded human beings who need compassion and life tools.”
In 2012, Jiang Stein founded The unPrison Project, a nonprofit whose goal is “to empower, inspire, and cultivate critical thinking, life skills, self-reflection, and peer mentoring for women and girls in prison.” She presents workshops in prisons across the country and plans to expand her nonprofit’s mission to offer “Mother Mail” — packets of letters and artwork sent from schoolchildren to their moms in prison. She aims to provide incarcerated women with goal planners they can use to advance their education and help with substance abuse treatment. She also wants to connect formerly incarcerated women to assistance with jobs, housing, and parenting. Jiang Stein told Amatenstein, “Prison is my birth country. Going back has freed me.” And now her work is freeing other women too.
MORE: This Judge Figured Out How to Keep People Out of Prison by Treating Them Like His Own Children