Biography

Kimberly Noble, MD, PhD, is a Professor of Neuroscience and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. As a neuroscientist and board-certified pediatrician, she directs the Neurocognition, Early Experience, and Development Lab, where she and her team study how socioeconomic inequality relates to children's cognitive and brain development. Dr. Noble was awarded the 2017 Association for Psychological Science Janet Taylor Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions, the 2021 American Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest, and has been elected a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science.

Website: https://needlabcolumbia.wixsite.com/needlab
Twitter: @KimberlyGNoble

Sarah Halpern-Meekin is an associate professor in the La Follette School of Public Affairs and the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She studies instability in family relationships and family finances, as well as the role social policies play in these experiences of instability and their consequences. This includes research on social poverty, relationship churning (on-again/off-again relationships), prime-age men who are out of the labor force, and the Earned Income Tax Credit. Dr. Halpern-Meekin is leading the qualitative sub-study within Baby's First Years.

Katherine Magnuson, PhD, is a Vilas Achievement Professor of Social Work and the Director of the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She was elected into the American Academy of Social Work and Social Welfare in 2018. Her research focuses on the well-being and development of economically disadvantaged children and their families. She examines how disparities in socioeconomic status affect children’s development and how these effects may be altered by policies and programs, especially early childhood education programs.

Website: https://www.irp.wisc.edu/staff/magnuson-katherine
Twitter: @ProfKMag

Greg Duncan, PhD, is a Distinguished Professor in the School of Education at the University of California, Irvine. His recent work focuses on how school-entry skills and behaviors influence children’s later school achievement and attainment and how increasing income inequality can affect schools and influence children’s life chances. Dr. Duncan was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2010, and in 2015 he received the Society for Research in Child Development’s Award for Distinguished Contributions to Public Policy and Practice in Child Development.

Website: https://sites.uci.edu/gduncan/

Lisa A. Gennetian is the Pritzker Associate Professor of Early Learning Policy Studies in the Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke University. Dr. Gennetian’s research spans poverty and policy research, income security and stability, early care and education, and children’s development, with a lens toward causal mechanisms. In addition to her role in the Baby’s First Years study, Dr. Gennetian directs a body of research applying insights from behavioral economics to support parent engagement in, and enhance the impacts of, early childhood interventions and leads research on the economic circumstances of Hispanic children and families with the National Center for Research on Hispanic Families and Children.

Website: https://sanford.duke.edu/people/faculty/gennetian-lisa
Twitter: @Gen_Pov

Baby's First Years: The First Randomized Controlled Trial of Poverty Reduction in Early Childhood

Session Type: Invited Panel

Abstract

Childhood economic disadvantage is associated with lower cognitive and social-emotional skills, reduced educational attainment, and lower earnings in adulthood. Despite these robust correlations, it is unclear whether family income is the cause of differences observed between children growing up in poverty and their more fortunate peers, or whether these differences are merely due to the many other aspects of family life that co-occur with poverty. Baby’s First Years (BFY) is the first randomized controlled trial in the U.S. designed to identify the causal impact of poverty reduction on children’s early development. One thousand low-income mothers of newborns were enrolled in the study, and began receiving a monthly unconditional cash gift for the first 40 months of their child’s life. Mothers were randomized to receive either a large monthly cash gift or a nominal monthly cash gift. All monthly gifts are administered via debit card, and may be freely spent with no restrictions. BFY aims to answer whether poverty reduction (1) improves children's developmental outcomes and brain functioning by the time they reach age 3, and (2) improves family functioning and better enable parents to support child development in the first 3 years of life. Here we present the rationale and design of the study, preliminary findings from the first wave of data collection, and discuss potential implications for science and policy.

Sub Unit

• Invited Program

Moderator

• Greg J Duncan, University of California, Irvine

Panelists

• Kimberly G Noble, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Sarah Halpern-Meekin, University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Katherine Magnuson, University of Wisconsin - Madison

• Greg J Duncan, University of California, Irvine

• Lisa Gennetian, Duke University

Introducer

• Alayna Schreier, SRCD Executive Branch Fellow, ASPE, HHS