Guaranteed basic income helps some parents pay for childcare and stay afloat during maternity leave. With cash payments, parents report more job security and higher educational outcomes. Basic income critics say the programs are too expensive and discourage participants from working.
Celeste Lord-Timlin just had her first baby . Siobhan is about a month old, and it's a victory when she naps just long enough for Lord-Timlin to rest or take a phone call. Meals or a shower sometimes have to wait until her husband returns from work and can hold the rosy-cheeked newborn.
The 31-year-old and her husband love being parents. She said motherhood can feel "selfless," but it brings her so much joy to have Siobhan sleep on her lap in their Flint, Michigan home. "I am so thankful that I get to be her mom," she told Business Insider.
Still, children are expensive. Lord-Timlin was thrilled to find out she was pregnant, but she and her husband have been worried about paying for diapers, nursery essentials, pediatrician visits, a car, and grocery trips. And when Lord-Timlin returns from maternity leave to her full-time job in the public service field, the couple knows they will have to pay thousands of dollars a month in day care fees .
It felt overwhelming. Then Lord-Timlin enrolled in RxKids . The guaranteed basic income pilot is offering Flint-based mothers who had or will have children this year $1,500 during pregnancy and $500 a month through their baby's first birthday, no strings attac.