Skip to content
CityLab
+ Equality

NYC Guaranteed Income Program Goes From Pilot to Permanent

An initiative to give some mothers $1,000 a month is expanding, as lawmakers consider using city funds to boost the popular cash assistance program. 

The Bridge Project gives monthly payments to new mothers for 36 months. It started in Manhattan, and is now expanding to other boroughs as well as Rochester, New York. 

The Bridge Project gives monthly payments to new mothers for 36 months. It started in Manhattan, and is now expanding to other boroughs as well as Rochester, New York. 

Photographer: Tony Anderson/Digital Vision
By

A monthly cash payment program for new mothers in New York is going from pilot project to permanent program, as the city debates using public dollars to fuel guaranteed income initiatives. 

The Bridge Project, which launched in 2021 through the Monarch Foundation, started as a temporary program that gave monthly debit cards to pregnant mothers in northern Manhattan neighborhoods, hoping to test the benefits of no-strings-attached cash on the first three years of a baby’s life. In the coming months, the program will open to mothers in Brooklyn, Staten Island and Queens — as well as the upstate city of Rochester, New York. Participants receive $1,000 a month for 18 months, and then $500 a month for another 18 months after that.