By Sierra Marling
A New York-based initiative called The Bridge Project that gives no-strings-attached cash to pregnant women is expanding to Appalachia, promising a $10 million investment for families in West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio over the next three years.
Justine Daros lives with her husband and their son, Attilio, in North Carolina as a stay-at-home mom. She recalled the help she received from The Bridge Project, and credits it with making her a better parent.
Daros said the program empowered her to be a more informed first-time mother in New York City. She was 32 when she gave birth to Attilio. Then, when the COVID lockdowns came, she was even more on edge as a security guard, especially since she was classified as an essential worker.
She kept working and joined local programs to try to improve her life and transition to motherhood. That’s how she found The Bridge Project, which allowed her to work less and spend time with Attilio.
The guaranteed cash also helped alleviate daily financial stresses.
“Having the autonomy to make the choices that I deemed appropriate for my family was liberating,” she said. Other programs, like SNAP and WIC, have strict income limits and may not fit every family’s needs. Doras said The Bridge Project funds kept her from taking food from the table to pay for child care or other expenses.
“I also had a little more leeway when it came to what I could do for myself. Because you always have to take care of yourself.”
She said she especially valued the educational resources from the program, which taught her budgeting and other essentials that kept her family on its feet. The program’s community also connected her with other new mothers in similar situations.
“I didn’t have any friends who had kids, so it was good to find people who had children,” she said.
Building a Bridge
Funded by a private family foundation called The Monarch Foundation, The Bridge Project will provide financial support to 1,250 Appalachian mothers, while researching the effects of direct cash payments on maternal and child health.
“Our founders really cared a lot about supporting infants during the early parts of the COVID crisis,” Executive Director Laura Clancy said. The realization that direct cash was more efficient than material donations inspired the initiative.
The program has supported mothers in New York City, Buffalo, Rochester, Milwaukee and statewide in Connecticut. Its expansion into Appalachia will target 1,250 participants, with 500 in a “high cash” group receiving the typical program benefits and 750 in a “low cash” group compensated for participating in research surveys and interviews.
The initiative’s expansion aims to address systemic poverty in Appalachia. To that end, the Appalachian Regional Commission reports:
- 19% of children in Appalachia live in poverty
- Food insecurity affects one in six
- Infant mortality rate in the Appalachian region exceeds the national average by 16%
Supporters and detractors
According to Clancy, The Bridge Project contributes to work already being done in the region by partnering with regional organizations and connecting new moms to already available resources. Clancy said they hosted webinars to gauge interest and more than 300 prospective partners took part.
“We try and do our best to connect moms to the resources in their communities,” she said. “So the fact that 370 [Appalachian-focused] organizations came to our webinars also means that we have 370 organizations that are cheering our moms on.”
Lida Shepherd — who serves as program director for the West Virginia Economic Justice Project, which is part of the Quaker organization American Friends Service Committee — is one of the partners moving forward with The Bridge Project.
She said she believes that the project aligns with West Virginia’s culture and history of providing mutual aid to friends and neighbors as well as AFSC’s focus on influencing policy around economic justice and issues affecting poor and low-income populations.
Plus, these programs work to help low-income and disadvantaged Americans, she said, citing a decreased level of child poverty rates when the Child Tax Credit was expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic and more-than-doubled when the rate returned to normal.
That’s why they hope to partner with The Bridge Project to influence policy for guaranteed income and grow the number of organizations helping offer it.
“We have a very rich and celebrated history of not just hard-working people, but really looking out for one another. That’s the beautiful thing about West Virginia. The reality, too, is that we have a lot of people who are living on the brink and kids slipping into poverty. Programs like this … just really create economic opportunity for people and give families in Appalachia the financial freedom they deserve,” she said.
Clancy noted that guaranteed income plans, including expanding the child income tax credit, have also seen supporters on both sides of the political spectrum.
She said, in the case of The Bridge Project, “People understand that babies haven’t done anything wrong. Babies need food, and shelter, and clothes and diapers, and moms make really good decisions.”
However, the West Virginia legislature has historically been wary of such guaranteed cash programs.
In the 2024 legislative session, Delegate Evan Worrell, R-Cabell, introduced House Bill 5375, which died in committee.
The purpose of this legislation was to prohibit government entities from enacting their own universal basic income programs like The Bridge Project.
In an email to the Gazette-Mail, Worrell said, “With one of the lowest workforce participation rates in the country, West Virginia needs to focus on putting people to work by providing opportunities through economic development and growth. A universal basic income entitlement program goes against these priorities and is an insult to the hardworking men and women in West Virginia who work to provide for their families.”
While he also noted he has not finalized his legislative priorities for the upcoming session and that he is not familiar with The Bridge Project, he stated, “I can say with certainty any ‘guaranteed income’ entitlement program will not be welcomed in West Virginia.”
What the data says
Research shows the importance of early childhood development in determining long-term success in life, including Nobel Prize winner James Heckman, whose work demonstrates that child development yields higher long-term societal benefits compared to investing in older populations.
“There’s a lot of [medical, economic and workforce] research … that shows that pregnancy and the first 1,000 days of life are incredibly important, formative times in women’s lives and in their babies’ lives,” Clancy said. “And there’s a lot of research about how early adverse experiences of not having enough food and stable housing have bad negative long-term impacts on a baby.”
Data gathered from The Bridge Project’s previous cohorts has shown the following benefits of providing unconditional cash:
- Moms could better afford child care
- Participants could build up emergency savings
- Decreased stress
- Increased harmony within the household
- Positive effect on employment
Clancy said that data gathered from the Appalachian cohort’s randomized control trial will be available to inform future policy efforts on providing unconditional cash.
How it works & eligibility
Eligible pregnant women receive a monthly cash transfer to be spent flexibly to cover basic needs and expenses, allowing families to use the funds as they see best for their circumstances. Participants receive between $375 and $750 monthly, with participants receiving over $20,000 over the course of the program. Participants can set up direct-deposit or receive a reloadable debit card.
Participants receive:
- $1,125 one-time, upfront prenatal stipend
- $750 per month for the first 15 months of program participation
- $375 per month for the remaining 21 months of program participation
Applicants must:
- Live in the ARC-designated Appalachian counties within the states of Kentucky, Ohio and West Virginia — includes all of West Virginia, 54 central and eastern Kentucky counties, and 32 eastern Ohio counties
- Be 18 years or older
- Have an annual household income of less than $44,000
- Be 14 weeks pregnant or less, but must be pregnant
