The Trouble with Snap Judgments: Lessons from the Baby’s First Years Pilot
By: Gwen Battis
When new research lands in headlines, it’s tempting to treat the findings as a verdict. Case closed. Policy decided. But as we’ve seen with the recent coverage of the Baby’s First Years Pilot, evidence from complex, real-world interventions rarely fits neatly into a single takeaway. If anything, this study is a reminder to pause before drawing hard conclusions—especially about programs as nuanced as guaranteed income for families.
Launched in 2018, Baby’s First Years was the first U.S. study to examine how poverty reduction might shape a child’s early cognitive, emotional, and brain development. The study’s design was simple: 1,000 new mothers across four cities received either $333 or $20 per month for the first 52 months of their child’s life, or approximately the first four years. Funded with $22 million from the National Institute of Health and private foundations, the study tracked families from birth through age four.
The much-discussed working paper, covered by The New York Times, reported no measurable difference between the high-cash and low-cash groups in children’s vocabulary, executive function, pre-literacy skills, or spatial perception. On paper, this sounds damning. Years of extra cash—no difference?
But here’s where the picture blurs and important context is overlooked.
First, just as researchers began collecting follow-up data from the study, the COVID-19 pandemic shook the world and our country’s economy. Every family—regardless of cash group—faced massive disruptions, from job loss to school closures to increased stress levels. This timeframe seems unreasonable to compare with the baseline of 2018. For many across the country, including those in the study, $333 per month would not have felt impactful after the widespread layoffs or loss of income due to having to stay home and care for children. Researchers themselves note that the global crisis likely altered outcomes in ways impossible to control. Social scientists will be examining the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic for years to come and, in many ways, it’s too soon to draw conclusions.
Chart from Congressional Budget Office, A Visual Guide to Inflation From 2020 to 2023
Second, the amount of cash was modest. Payments were per family, not per child, and far lower than the expanded Child Tax Credit of 2021, which famously cut child poverty nearly in half in just six months. Add in the recent spike in inflation, and $333 simply didn’t stretch as far as the designers had hoped.
Third, and perhaps most important, is that poverty isn’t just about money—it’s about the compounding effects of generations of advantage or disadvantage: access to quality schools, safe neighborhoods, reliable transportation, mental health support, and more. A four-year pilot, even a well-funded one, can’t fully untangle those structural realities.
Critically, the study also debunked common fears: high-cash mothers did not spend more on alcohol or cigarettes, nor did they stop working. In fact, they spent slightly more on educational goods, and their reduced full-time work during the pandemic was framed by researchers as a positive—giving parents flexibility in a crisis. Most importantly, the cash restored a sense of dignity that comes from having greater financial security—a benefit arguably as valuable as, if not more than, any measurable gains in cognitive ability.
This research is valuable, but it’s not the last word. If we take anything from the Baby’s First Years Pilot, it should be this: short-term pilots, especially those disrupted by extraordinary events and constrained budgets, are just one piece of the evidence puzzle. The question isn’t whether $333 a month “works” in isolation—it’s how we build systems that give every child the security, stability, and opportunity to thrive.
Because real change doesn’t come from one study or one policy—it comes from learning, iterating, and resisting the urge to declare winners and losers before the story is fully told.
