Rx Kids distributes cash to pregnant women and young mothers in Michigan. A pilot program that launched in Flint in 2024 quickly expanded to dozens of cities. Lawmakers gave $270 million to the program this year.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman championed helping the poor with direct cash payments, and others agreed. Economic theory says programs such as Rx Kids should outperform typical government welfare systems, which are run by distant bureaucracies and controlled by politicians. Rx Kids takes a different approach and trusts that recipients know how to help themselves better than government officials do.

Rx Kids may be a more efficient way of helping needy pregnant women and mothers. If this is the case, taxpayers would benefit if policymakers scaled back current welfare spending and redirected it toward this program.

The state already gives financial assistance to low-income mothers and families. Michigan’s largest bureaucracy, the state health department, administers the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, funded by federal and state dollars. Some of these funds provide basic financial assistance to low-income households through the Family Independence Program.

Low-income households also qualify for taxpayer-subsidized food through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. They get assistance to pay for housing and home-heating costs. Medicaid pays for health care. They receive tax credits for dependent children and earned income that can turn into cash payments. The Women, Infants and Children Supplemental Nutrition Program helps pregnant women and young mothers, just like Rx Kids. The list goes on.

Which of these programs is most effective at helping needy families? Which is best at lifting people out of poverty and supporting steps toward self-sufficiency? Which one is the most efficient from a taxpayer's perspective? Before increasing spending on Rx Kids, policymakers should answer questions like these.

Lawmakers should always be on the lookout for wasteful or duplicative spending in Michigan's complex and multilayered welfare system. There seems to be plenty of it. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities compared states’ Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funds and found Michigan spends a smaller share of this money on welfare assistance than most other states. Nearly a quarter of it goes to “administration and systems.” The Wall Street Journal recently reported how Michigan once used these funds to subsidize college scholarships that mostly benefited middle- and upper-income students.

Rx Kids raises questions about the effectiveness of the state’s current welfare programs in another way. Studies suggest the program substantially improves the lives of its recipients. What is being accomplished by the billions of taxpayer dollars spent on welfare programs if giving cash to pregnant women and young mothers in the state’s poorest communities significantly improves their situation?

Policymakers should cut spending on some existing welfare programs before they increase funding for Rx Kids. Extra support for the program cannot be justified if it simply duplicates existing taxpayer funds.

Rx Kids may alleviate poverty better than existing programs in Michigan. Direct cash assistance might be more efficient — from a taxpayer perspective — than traditional welfare spending. Policymakers should evaluate the effectiveness of current welfare programs and reallocate resources toward the most efficient programs.

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