An experiment that provided poor mothers with cash stipends for the first year of their children's lives appears to have changed the babies' brain activity in ways associated with stronger cognitive development, a finding with potential implications for safety net policy.
It remains to be seen if the changes in brain patterns will translate to higher skills, as other research suggests, but the differences were modest and researchers likened them to moving to the 75th position in a line of 100 from the 81st.
President Biden is pushing for a larger program of subsidies for families with children, despite evidence that a single year of subsidies could alter something as profound as brain functioning.
Martha J. Farah, a neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania, conducted a review of the study and said it was a big scientific finding. It is proof that giving the families more money leads to better brain development.
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The payments will continue until the children are at least 4 years old, and the researchers plan further tests.
Charles A. Nelson III of Harvard said the full effect of the payments would not be known until the children took cognitive tests. He said that the brain patterns documented in the study are not always associated with higher cognitive skills.
Dr. Nelson was a consultant to the study. It would be premature of me to pass a bill that gives every family $300 a month.
Mr. Biden failed to unite Democrats behind a large social policy bill that would have extended the program. Most Republicans don't like the monthly grants because of the cost and the fact that they discourage parents from working.
Sharing some of the same concerns as Senator Joe Manchin III, Democrat of West Virginia, he effectively blocked the Biden plan, though he has suggested that he might support payments limited to families of modest means and those with jobs. The payments in the experiment were provided regardless of whether the parents worked or not.
Poor children start school with weaker cognitive skills, and neuroscientists have shown that the differences extend to brain structure and function. It's not clear if those differences are caused by the shortage of money or a related factor.
According to the study, poverty holds children back from their earliest moments.
The study is the first to show that money has an effect on brain development.
Dr. Noble and colleagues from six universities recruited a thousand mother-infant pairs within days of the babies' birth and randomly divided the families into two groups. One group received $20 a month and the other received $333.
The researchers found that children in the high-cash group had more of the fast brain activity associated with cognitive development than those in the low-cash group. The differences were statistically significant, but not all, but they were the most significant in parts of the brain associated with cognitive advancement.
The payments will continue until the children are at least 4 years old.
Researchers are trying to figure out why the money changed brain development. It could have purchased better food or health care, reduced parental stress, or allowed mothers to work less and spend more time with their infants.
Cash aid is central to social policy because of the question of whether it helps or hurts children. The Progressives argue that poor children need an income floor because of research that shows they can suffer from poor health and lower earnings. Conservatives say that poverty increases in the long run because of the erosion of work and marriage.
President Bill Clinton changed the stance of the Democratic Party when he abolished welfare guarantees and shifted aid to parents who work. The reasons for child poverty falling to record lows are in dispute, and rising inequality and volatility have revived Democratic support for subsidies.
Many rich countries offer broad children's allowances without condition, as well as a variety of public and private programs to measure the effects of a guaranteed income on poor families.
The child tax credit was expanded last year to give subsidies to all but the richest parents at a cost of more than $100 billion. The study showed that investing in our children has incredible long-term benefits.
Greg J. Duncan, an economist at the University of California, Irvine, who was one of nine co-authors of the study, said he hoped the research would refocus the debate on the risks that parents might work less or use the money frivolously.
Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation argued that the study vindicated stringent welfare laws, which he credited with reducing child poverty by incentivizing parents to find and keep jobs.
He said that if you believe child poverty has negative effects, then you shouldn't try to restore cash aid. You don't want to reverse welfare reform.
Economists and psychologists used to dominate studies of poor children. They have shown over the past 15 years that poor children have different brain structures and function than other children.
There are differences in electrical activity. The size of the cerebral cortex has been shown to be different in areas related to language development and executive functioning. A study found that cerebral cortex size may account for up to 44 percent of the achievement gap between high- and low-income adolescents.
Averages do not predict individual outcomes. Many low-income children thrive because of other factors beyond brain features.
Baby's First Years raised more than $20 million from public and private sources to test the effects of cash aid. Researchers recruited people from maternity wards. Paul and the metro areas of New Orleans and Omaha were assigned to the high- and low-payment groups.
The families had an average income of $20,000 below the official poverty line, meaning those who received $333 a month experienced an income gain of 20 percent. The mothers were told they could use the money as they wished.
The researchers predicted that children in the high-cash group would have more brain activity than those in the low-cash group. Previous research has shown that these patterns are associated with higher cognitive skills and less attention problems.
The results were in line with predictions, with the children who received the higher grants showing more of the fast brain activity.
Money appeared to cause the changed brain patterns, though they were less equivocal in interviews. Dr. Noble said the evidence was not tight because they only tested a small number of infants.
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Researchers are trying to figure out why the money changed brain development. It could have spent more money on food or health care.
John Gabrieli, a neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said the evidence that cash aid altered brain activity was persuasive and important scientifically, though he added, "We want to see if these differences result in improvements to cognition."
The researchers said that the recorded differences were comparable to the average school experiment, like giving children tutor. Cash can be distributed on a mass scale, they said.
The co-author of the study, who directs the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin, said she was surprised that only a year's worth of aid made a difference. She said that it shows how sensitive the brain is to environments.
Critics warn that families will misuse unrestricted cash aid. Lisa A. Gennetian, an economist at Duke University and a co-author of the study, said the results indicated that parents could be trusted to make good decisions. She said that it could be food or housing for one family. Additional research will look at how parents spent their money.
The experiment was limited to poor newborns, which would make it less costly to replicate and may ease conservatives concerns about discouraging work.
The study suggested the importance of infant bonding, according to a critic of the broader payments. She said that if the initial results hold up, they could lend support for policies that help mothers spend more time with their newborns.
She said that any cash aid should be targeted to those with low incomes, time limited, and not erode work incentives in the long term.
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