Sharing Lessons from the First Conditional Cash Transfer Program in the United States

The National Poverty Center at the University of Michigan authored this policy brief, which offers lessons learned from New York City’s conditional cash transfer program, Opportunity NYC: Family Rewards. The program was targeted to six of New York’s highest poverty neighborhoods with high rates of intergenerational poverty and offered cash assistance to reduce immediate hardship, which was conditioned on efforts to support children in school, gain family health care, and support parents’ job training and skill building. The evaluation revealed that the program had short-term positive impacts for families experiencing intergenerational poverty.