Black mothers in four California counties will receive guaranteed income payments for one year as part of an expansion of a program started in San Francisco last summer.
According to a San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH) release, the Abundant Birth Project has been awarded $5 million in state funding to expand and support additional Black mothers and families.
The Abundant Birth Project is an SFDPH program that operates in partnership with Expecting Justice to support Black mothers with guaranteed income payments to reduce racial disparities by easing the economic stress that comes with motherhood.
The first-of-its-kind program will expand from San Francisco to Almeda, Contra Costa, Los Angeles, and Riverside counties. The expansion will support an additional 125 Black and Pacific Islander mothers and birth parents with payments between $600 and $1000 for 12 months.
“The Abundant Birth Project has proven to be successful in San Francisco and brings an innovative, equitable approach
to addressing disproportionate health impacts largely among Black families, which is why I committed to investing $1.5 million over the next two years to grow the program in our City and neighboring counties,” Mayor London Breed said in the SFDPH release. “This guaranteed income program helps ease some of the financial burdens that all too often keep mothers from being able to prioritize their own health and ultimately impact the health of their babies and family. We hope the Abundant Birth Project serves as a model to address racial birth disparities throughout the region and state, and across the country.”In addition to the guaranteed income payments, researchers at the University of California at San Francisco, Berkeley, and Davis will study the positive impacts the payments have on the mothers and their families. Guaranteed income programs gained steam in California during the COVID-19 pandemic and have grown across the country to Illinois, Georgia, Colorado, and Florida since.
Black women who become pregnant struggle with more than just their finances. According to the National Diaper Bank Network (NDBN), Black women in the U.S. experience poor maternal health outcomes, including being three times more likely to die from pregnancy or childbirth than women of any other race.
“For so long, Black women have been excluded from the resources needed to have safe and healthy pregnancies. This funding will provide pregnant people with economic stability during this critical phase in their lives while allowing public health institutions to test a novel and promising public health intervention,” Dr. Zea Malawa, director of Expecting Justice said in the SFDPH release.