Conditional cash transfers (CCTs) are rapidly expanding as a poverty-reduction strategy around the world. Following the publication of positive findings from a randomized controlled trial (RCT) launched in 1998 to evaluate Mexico’s CCT program (Progresa/Oportunidades), more than 60 countries have adopted CCT programs. Such programs vary in their specific features, but all share the common element of providing cash payments to poor families that are contingent on meeting certain conditions, such as using preventive healthcare, keeping children enrolled in school, and participating in employment, educational, or training activities. The goal is to encourage families to invest in their own development so as to break the cycle of poverty.
CCT programs are most prevalent in low- and middle-income countries, but in the mid-2000s, New York City launched a CCT program called Opportunity NYC—Family Rewards and engaged the research firm MDRC to evaluate the program in a large RCT. The main evaluation reports, which presented outcomes three to six years after random assignment, found that the program did not produce significant effects on most major educational, health, or workforce outcomes [1][2]. However, the reports suggested ways the program might be modified to become more effective. Based on these suggestions, MDRC launched a revised CCT program called Family Rewards 2.0 in 2011 in the Bronx (New York) and Memphis, Tennessee, and embedded an RCT to measure the new program’s effectiveness.
This Straight Talk post highlights the findings from the RCT of Family Rewards 2.0, as reported by MDRC last year. The study found the program to be generally well-implemented but—like its predecessor Opportunity NYC—it produced largely disappointing effects on the targeted outcomes. The following is our brief overview of the study, and our full three-page evidence summary is linked here.
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