To explain how it was going, students shared their experiences through the Rooted Cash Podcast
Across the nation, there’s been an increase in programs looking at ways to help lift up young people – and move them from poverty into more secure futures.
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Teachers have long known that students with economically stable lives are better able to learn, without the distraction of scrambling to find money for school uniforms, sports gear, food, clothing, books, transportation, and WiFi services. Poverty’s effects on academics become even more clear in high school. The number of low-income students who drop out of high school is nearly four times higher than higher-income households.
Those students might do better if they felt more economically stable, Rooted School administrators concluded a few years ago. In response, they launched a guaranteed-income program, which they called The $50 Study, since that’s how much each participant received each week.
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“We are still navigating a lot of the remnants of the pandemic: chronic absenteeism, performance slippage,” said Rooted School Foundation CEO Jonathan Johnson, who believes that school administrators must innovate, in ways that help children. “We still very much believe that there are interventions out there that are often underexplored that could be leveraged to move the needle for young people in a way that hasn’t been done before.”
Research shows that, when compared with previous generations, today’s young adults feel instability that goes far beyond the pandemic, which is why an increasing number of guaranteed-income programs are focused on youth.
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Results published earlier this month show that Rooted’s $50 Study seems to have moved the needle for participating students, who demonstrated improved attendance and higher reading-level growth than their peers, among other strides forward. The study tracked academic outcomes like attendance and grades, financial literacy and each student’s sense of self and future outlook.
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Students who received the $50 each week missed two fewer days of school in a semester compared to those in the control group. This is important for students’ learning — and particularly significant in Louisiana, because state law stipulates that students who miss more than 10 days of school can automatically fail a grade level, putting them at risk of not graduating.
Students who received the $50 stipends also showed a half year of reading growth — twice as much as students who did not receive the money.
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Lena Cornish, [the mom of Layla who received the weekly stipend] saw growth in her daughter that was “life-changing,” she said, noting that Layla had, over time, learned to save money instead of spending it immediately like many children do. “Kids, they get money and they automatically think they need to spend,” she said.
Layla’s experience, and growth, was shared by other students. As staff watched, students used their stipends to help their families and save for important things, which provided a feeling of security, said Talia Livneh, senior director of programs at Rooted.
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Some of the results of the Rooted School study echo larger, household findings from The Center for Law and Social Policy, which found families reported more stability after the introduction of two pandemic-era programs, the Child Tax Credit and economic impact payments, through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.
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But lawmakers have also targeted young people for additional support. The Young Adult Tax Credit Act would provide a universal $500 monthly payment to all 18- to 24-year-olds in the United States. “Our social safety net rightfully has programs for childhood and seniors, but it fails to address the prevalence of young adult poverty,” said Rep. Morgan McGarvey of Kentucky, a co-sponsor of the Young Adult Tax Credit.
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Since the early 1970s, poverty has increased for young adults, who are now among the most likely age group to live below the federal poverty line. They are juggling education, work and household responsibilities in a world with heightened instability, lower social mobility, and greater economic inequality.
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Banking data showed that most students spent their money on basic needs – nearly half on groceries, Livneh said. The second most frequent purchases were retail services, then transportation, which made up for about 12% of money spent. That may be because school bus routes can feel lengthy, especially for teens who might have opted to sleep a little later, then use their money to take an Uber to school, “to get there faster,” Livneh said.
Students also saved, in a way that administrators hadn’t anticipated. “What blew me away is 46% of the money that we transferred to students was still sitting in bank accounts at the end of the study,” Livneh said.
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