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Money For Moms

DENIS CHARLET
/
AFP/Getty Images

A fascinating and ambitious new experiment has just launched after six years of careful design by economists, neuroscientists, and other scholars. For the first time, researchers will be investigating the causal effects of lower incomes on the brain development of babies and toddlers.

Specifically, the researchers want to know what happens when new mothers are given a big supplemental monthly income — untaxed, and in addition to other benefits they already receive. Will that extra income improve the emotional and brain development of the child during the first three years of the child's life?

The answer could fundamentally affect the way we think about the effects of poverty on children.

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Stacey Vanek Smith is the co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money. She's also a correspondent for Planet Money, where she covers business and economics. In this role, Smith has followed economic stories down the muddy back roads of Oklahoma to buy 100 barrels of oil; she's traveled to Pune, India, to track down the man who pitched the country's dramatic currency devaluation to the prime minister; and she's spoken with a North Korean woman who made a small fortune smuggling artificial sweetener in from China.
Cardiff Garcia is a co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money podcast, along with Stacey Vanek Smith. He joined NPR in November 2017.
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