The Cost of Child Poverty: Direct Payment in a Time of Need

Please join us as Roosevelt House—along with The Invisible Americans, a nonprofit project aimed at ending child poverty in the United States, and The Bridge Project, also a nonprofit seeking to solve U.S. child poverty—hosts an urgent and important discussion of direct cash payments to care for children living in poverty.

With the federal expanded child tax credit stalled in the Senate, panelists will explore other pathways to address child poverty and bring direct aid to families in need—including additional support from the state and city as well as from private philanthropy.

Participants include:

Holly Fogle is founder of the Monarch Foundation and The Bridge Project, the nation’s first and largest unconditional cash program for babies. The Bridge Project supports healthy development for babies during their first 1,000 days of life by providing their mothers with consistent, unconditional cash on a biweekly basis. In just three years, The Bridge Project has added 1,200 babies and mothers to the program, scaled its presence to all five New York City boroughs, Rochester, and Buffalo. Fogle has committed over $35 million directly into the hands of New York’s families. Over the next two years, The Bridge Project will expand to three new regions of the United States and add more than 2,000 more babies to its program.

Daniela Gutierrez is a 30-year-old mother of a 2.5-year-old son and has another baby on the way. Half Mexican and half Salvadoran, Daniela was born and raised in New York City. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English and currently works for The New York Public Library. Daniela is one of the many moms that have benefited from the Bridge Project’s program, part of their inaugural cohort launched in 2021.

Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha is the Associate Dean for Public Health and C. S. Mott Endowed Professor of Public Health at Michigan State University College of Human Medicine. She is the founding director of the Pediatric Public Health Initiative, an innovative partnership of MSU and Hurley Children’s Hospital in Flint, Michigan. Dr. Hanna-Attisha was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World and recognized as one of USA Today’s Women of the Century for her role in uncovering the Flint water crisis and leading recovery efforts. Author of What the Eyes Don’t See: A Story of Crisis, Resistance, and Hope in an American City, which won the PEN America Freedom of Expression Award, Dr. Hanna-Attisha along with Dr. Luke Shaefer created Rx Kids—a first-in-nation  public/private program providing cash support for every child born in Flint beginning at 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Dr. Catherine Monk is the founder of the Perinatal Pathways Lab at Columbia University Medical Center, where she studies the connection between stress in pregnant people and the eventual mental health of the child. Dr. Monk’s research brings together the fields of psychopathology, developmental psychobiology, developmental neuroscience, and perinatal psychiatry to focus on the earliest influences on children’s developmental trajectories—including those that happen in utero—and how to intervene early to prevent mental health problems.

Jeffrey Madrick, moderator and co-host of The Invisible Americans, is the author of seven books on the economy, including Invisible Americans: The Tragic Cost of Child Poverty. An Emmy Award-winning former television financial analyst, he was also a columnist for the New York Review of Books and New York Times.

Carol Jenkins, moderator, and co-host of The Invisible Americans, is an Emmy Award-winning former television anchor and correspondent. She is the founding president of The Women’s Media Center and Board Chair of the ERA Coalition. With Elizabeth Hines, she is the co-author of Black Titan: A.G. Gaston and the Making of a Black American Millionaire, a biography of her uncle.