Carol opens this episode by discussing a powerful act of protest that took place on May 7, 2025—a 24-hour vigil held outside the Capitol to save Medicaid from devastating cuts, organized in part by advocacy organization Caring Across Generations.
Medicaid supports over 72 million Americans, including 72% of all births and 62% of nursing home residents. It is a lifeline not just for the most vulnerable, but for the very fabric of American families.
We open the show with a clip of last episode’s guest Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner, president of MomsRising, speaking at the vigil.
Carol continues the conversation with guest host David Ambroz and episode guest Natalie Foster.
Natalie Foster, author of The Guarantee, outlines her framework for guaranteed essentials—housing, health care, and income. She discusses the expanded Child Tax Credit, the momentum behind state-level guaranteed income programs, and the impact of these initiatives on real families.
David speaks passionately about Medicaid’s role in his life and the lives of millions of children, and highlights the urgency of making moral, policy-driven choices to protect families.
They also explore how digital storytelling—from TikTok creators to everyday voices—is reshaping public understanding of the economy and poverty. One of the biggest ways to help solve the poverty crisis in this country is by providing direct cash – and Carol talks about one of the states that is already doing that: Alaska.
Carol is joined by Sarah Cowan of NYU’s Cash Transfer Lab to discuss Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend, a universal program that provides cash payments to all state residents. Cowan explains how this approach reduces poverty, supports health, and operates on the principle of trust and dignity. This was a policy choice made by Alaskan lawmakers to help ensure the future stability of Alaska’s economy by putting cash into the hands of every Alaskan.
"Every Alaskan gets a check. And nobody has to prove they’re poor." – Sarah Cowan
Based on the study by the Cash Transfer Lab, this dispersal is:
What doesn’t happen when you give direct cash? By and large:
And also, people do have babies – and those babies are healthier and those families are stronger.
While Sarah is studying how this money’s impact and how it is spent by Alaskans, she talked to Alaskan lawmakers who didn’t even ask those questions because Alaskans get this money, and it’s theirs to do with as they wish.
“The whole policy is endowed with trust.” - Sarah Cowan
David shares his personal journey from homelessness to national advocacy, drawing from his memoir A Place Called Home. His lived experience underscores the emotional and material cost of failing policies—and the profound impact of programs like Medicaid, which helped him survive.
A friend and past guest of the show, we are proud to welcome David to our podcast in a new role – speaking with others about how we can continue to uplift 13 million invisible Americans.
Carol Jenkins: Hello, and thanks so much for joining the Invisible Americans podcast with Jeff Madrick and Carol Jenkins. We address the travesty of child poverty here.
Jeff Madrick: There are nearly 13 million children living in serious material deprivation in America, and we don't see them. They are our invisible Americans, and we plan to change that.
Carol Jenkins: A couple of words about us. The podcast is based on Jeff's book, Invisible Americans, the tragic cost of child poverty. He's an economics writer, author of seven and co-author of another four books on the American economy.
Jeff Madrick: And Carol is an Emmy-winning journalist, activist and author, most recently president of the ERA Coalition, working to amend the Constitution to include women.
Carol Jenkins: and we are longtime colleagues and friends. On Wednesday, May 7th of 2025, activists began a 24-hour vigil to save Medicaid. While Congress debates cutting $88 billion from the safety net that provides for 72 million people, including millions of poverty-stricken children, protesters took a stand at the Capitol and on the National Mall. Brought together by the organization Caring Across Generations, they said, Medicaid makes the difference between life and death for so many. Here's Kristen Rowe-Finkbeiner of MomsRising.
Kristen Rowe-Finkbeiner: We're here today and we'll be here for the next 24 hours to tell Republicans in that Congress right there that Medicaid is so, so, so much more than just another line item in the federal budget. It's a lifeline for moms, children, and families. It's essential for our communities, our businesses, and our economy, and we intend to protect it. Who here is ready to fight to protect Medicaid? Let's hear you! And who knows this, what happens when we fight? When we fight, we win.
Alright. Medicaid is the reason we fight. Medicaid is the reason that more than 72 million of us have access to health care. It's the reason nearly half of our nation's births are covered. It's the reason more than 62% of people in nursing homes can be there. It's the reason more than one in three people with disabilities can get the care they need. And that is not all people. Medicaid is the reason that rural hospitals and hospitals of all sizes can keep their doors open when any of us have an emergency. And it's the reason that millions, millions of children and millions of people can get the preventative care that they need so they don't end up in a medical crisis. We absolutely need Medicaid. Yet even with all of these reasons, all of these excellent reasons, Republican leadership in Congress is trying to cut it. To this we say, no way, not on our watch.
Carol Jenkins: In today's episode, we are joined by guest co-host David Ambrose, child advocate and author of A Place Called Home, a memoir of his young life in extreme poverty. David and I talk with Natalie Foster, president and founder of the Economic Security Project. Her book, The Guarantee, Inside the Fight for America's Next Economy, takes a look at how we need to change almost everything. Natalie, thanks so much for being with us. David and I are so eager to hear what you think about our economy, especially today. The perfect timing for the kind of work that you've been doing for a long time. Give us your assessment of where we are.
Natalie Foster: Thank you for having me. It's a real honor to be here. And I think, you know, the title says it all. Invisible Americans. And I think that is still where we are, right? This economy is broken for so many families. And people are saying that at the voter box. People are saying that in the streets. And it's going to get worse as we are heading toward a slump and a possible recession given this administration's actions. So I think the economy is hard for so many families. It's a great moment to be saying something different can and should be built.
David Ambroz: Ooh, something different. Tell us what the guarantee is and what inspired you to write it.
Natalie Foster: I believe that the American economy can center the inherent worth and dignity of every American, regardless of race, religion or zip code. And we can choose to prioritize stability, which then would unleash the mass abundance to replace the scarcity caused by wealth hoarding. But we first have to have that stability. I think that's the point of the guarantee that there are a set of things that should just be. guaranteed for people. I'm talking the guarantee of housing, of healthcare, of income, and so forth. That it's a paradigm. It's a way we should see the economy. There's no magic list of things that should be guaranteed, but that it's the basic things people need. While we seem further away from that at the national level, when you look at the local level, you see people building models that would in fact guarantee things like elder care in Washington state or guarantee housing in Montgomery County, Maryland. That there are the models that are homegrown, that are American, right, that can happen here and that should be the future of the American economy.
David Ambroz: Why is this the moment for this kind of bold idea?
Natalie Foster: it is clear now than it's ever been that the old economy is broken. And that is now true, you know, widely understood that 50 years of neoliberal economic policymaking, call it trickle-down economics, call it Reaganomics, call it neoliberalism, that would all frame up as, you know, total faith in the market and zero faith in government and a story to people that they have to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. that that was the reigning ideology for 50 years. And it's become clear that it did not leave us stronger as a country. In fact, it concentrated what we have in the hands of a few small people, and it left the country brittle and weak in the throes of an authoritarian. And so it's clear that something new has to come, and the question is what will replace it.
Carol Jenkins: If you could talk to us about this moment that we're in as regards to what's going on in D.C. right now, what will that bring?
Natalie Foster: The cuts that are proposed right now in Washington, D.C.and national, led by a very partisan agenda, are devastating for families. Just this week, our friends at the California Budget and Policy Center put out a report looking at the tale of two families. One family is lower income. They're going to lose Head Start. Let's say their kid goes to Head Start, which is our public early learning investment we make as a nation. That's going to be $1,000, $670 a month essentially that they would lose in child care subsidies. That is months and months of utility bills. That is a month's rent with a roof over their head. And that is the loss of child care for that family.
On the other hand, there's another family that's in the top 1% of income earners in this country. They stand to gain $72,000 in tax breaks with this administration's proposals, $72,000 that they get in their pockets next year, which pays for a live-in nanny, months and months of personal chef services, right? And it's just such a stark example of what it will mean for individual families if these tax bills that are being discussed move forward.
David Ambroz: When you look at this, there's kind of a standard criticism I've come across in kind of preparing for today, which is that your bold idea is too idealistic and or too expensive or some combination thereof. How do you respond to that? It's pretty standard when I look at universal basic incomes or anything related to that, that that's the kind of response. And I have no doubt you have a head on answer to that.
Natalie Foster: To sort of phrase my friend, Michael Tubbs, the former mayor of Stockton, he says, it's too expensive not to do it. And I think he's absolutely right that the expense of keeping families right on the edge of so many families going without healthcare, of the cost of care, that that is incredibly expensive and we need to be investing in American families. But that said, this country finds money to pay for whatever this country decides is important. Whether it be manufacturing chips right here in the United States, because we think that's a matter of national security, or whether it's defense. Whatever we decide is important, we find the money for. And the shelves of think tanks in Washington, D.C. are filled with proposals that would create the revenue needed to fund these kinds of ideas. We just have to have the political will to get there.
Carol Jenkins: Natalie, talk to us about the Child Tax Credit. Talk about that as a story. And what will the next iteration look like?
Natalie Foster: I am really excited about the Child Tax Credit. I believe the Child Tax Credit is an example of what the guarantee of income could look like in America, right? It was expanded several years ago and it meant that every parent in America for a short period of time experienced a guaranteed income. Checks were debited directly into their accounts. There were no lines to stand in. There were no forms to fill out. There were no inspectors coming into your home to just check on how clean you're keeping it. No, the checks came directly. regularly to every parent to just help them deal with the rising cost of living in America. It shows we know how to do this. Unfortunately, it was pulled away by Republicans and one Democrat and has not moved forward on the national level. The good news is, one, we have a blueprint for how to do it, and that within weeks of passing it, the IRS moved forward and sent those checks to parents in this country.
But the second part of the story is that the momentum has been growing and growing and growing in the states. Since we passed the expanded child tax credit several years ago, we've seen the number of states with child tax credits on their own tax codes double in this country. It's red states, it's purple states, and it's blue states, all of whom are arguing for things like this is how we keep parents who want to raise their families right here in this state. Two, this is how we help families, you know, deal with the rising cost of living. And it makes me want to end with a quick story of a mom that I talked to named Adriana. And, you know, she is the mom of several kids who love soccer. And she barely makes ends meet each month. And so when it comes time for soccer, it gets really expensive because you have to get the shoes, the shin guards, the whole bit, right? For your kids, they outgrow it from last season. When she got that child tax credit check, she was able to go to the store and get her kids the full soccer kit that they needed to start the season and say yes to that. Set her kids up for success, feel like a good parent, and have the agency to do that.
David Ambroz: When you talk about it, it strikes me that instead of micromanaging, we manage to trust that we look at these individuals, instead of micromanaging how they spend the resources, trust them as fellow citizens that they're going to do the best things for their family. And I think on a left-right paradigm, it kind of challenges that because it reduces the amount of government necessary to validate all those micromanagement things, which means less, quote unquote, less government, but at the same time gives people the resources they need. And we know from countless research and data that people at this economic level use money on basics. So it kind of is, it challenges that paradigm as does the states that have implemented it. When you envision this in a location, what does the life of that family look like? Can you help paint that picture? You shared the story of the soccer, but what does that story look like for families or children in a state? How is it going to be different for them if we were to move this forward?
Natalie Foster: I mean, imagine a world with the guarantees, okay? So that would mean that a family is able to find housing that fits well within their budget and the mom, you know, or the parent doesn't go to sleep at night stressed about how they're going to cover the rent each month. It would mean that they could take their kids to the doctor when their body needs to go to the doctor, right? Either when they're sick or when they're growing or when there's a question that it would not be put off because it's too expensive to go to the doctor. It would mean that when that kid turns 18 years old and it's time to go to college or to technical school or to a trade school, that it's affordable, that they aren't taking out 40, 50, $100,000 in loan just to educate the child, right, to be an active part of this country's workforce someday, right?
What was once understood to be a public good in this country, that we would see it as such again. It would mean that when the time comes for elder care with this family, and, you know, so many people lay awake at night wondering, how am I going to find care? How am I going to pay for care? How am I going to take care of my parents in their final years? that that wouldn't be a question. It would be clear how care is found, clear how care is paid for, and that the caregiver themselves would have a living wage that would allow the caregiver themselves to take care of their own family. This is the world that we could live in. Here in the richest nation on earth, And for so many families in the higher income brackets, they live in a world like that. And so I want that for every family in this country.
David Ambroz: I think that unleashes entrepreneurship and risk-taking, all the great characteristics that make us a distinguished economy. It allows more people to participate in those things. So that really resonates with me. I have one question, and I'll go back to Carol, but where did this passion and interest of yours come from? I don't know if our listeners want to have the pleasure, but your eyes are electric. When you talk about these things, it's clear that I'm touching a part of your soul, or you are sharing that. Where did that come from? Where did this interest in this topic come from for you personally?
Natalie Foster: Well, I appreciate the note. I do get excited about this, partly because I've seen it work, David and Carol, and that's why it's really an honor to get to be here with you. You know, I've seen what mayors and state legislators are doing around this country. And I know, you know, I grew up believing that we couldn't have nice things here, that it was un-American, right? Those things, that was for Europe or some Scandinavian countries, not the United States. Oh, it has to be, you know, total faith in the market, zero faith in government and people pull themselves up by their bootstraps here. But I have come to see a different story and I've come to see the activists, the technologists, the policymakers, the electeds around the country who are building a different model.
And I've understood that it's possible to do in this country. We just need the political will. So I get excited about it. And I come by that excitement naturally. I'm the daughter of a preacher. I grew up in Kansas and I, you know, had a shift in college to sort of expand my sense of love to include justice. I'd grown up understanding love and God's love in the Christian tradition and it would be Cornel West at college who would, his quote that justice is what love looks like in public. helped shape the way I think about my work in the world. But if we have a minute, I would love to say, David and Carol, I'd love to hear your stories too.
David Ambroz: I absolutely love that and your connection to preaching. No, I grew up homeless and then in foster care. I was homeless for 12 years. And for me, poverty was just one long line. You know, it was go here, go there for support services and an illusion of a zero-sum game when I think there is no limit to our compassion. I also say just morally, we're better than this. To have a permanent class of 10 million children living in our country in abject poverty is not who we are. It's not who we aspire to be. So I'm very bullish on it, us as a country, that we can choose. Everything other than the laws of physics is a choice. And in this work with Carol and in my work as an advocate for kids, I want us to make a different choice. And that choice is to lift kids up and not penalize them for needing help. So I really, I love the work that you're doing. So that's a little bit.
Natalie Foster: I really appreciate that, and I couldn't agree more. Talk about the economy like it's the weather, like it's something that just happens to us, when in fact, to the point you're making, it is a choice that we make every step of the way. And so when we plan for certain outcomes, like there will just be millions of people unhoused in this country, then that's what we get. When we say it is entirely up to the market to solve housing in this country, then that's the outcomes that we will get. And so we can make very different choices when we decide to. And to your point too, I'm painting the story of one where stress for families, where stress is lowered, where it's clear how the basics are going to be met. But I also think there is a piece of that that is, like you said, unleashing the entrepreneurialism that we know is widely distributed and even evenly distributed across this country, the ingenuity, the creativity, but that the opportunity to pursue that is not.
One of the data points that's really stuck with me is that during the pandemic, when we put money into people's pockets, When we actually did these things, we sent the child tax credit checks, we had unemployment insurance, we made sure people weren't evicted from their homes. We even did things like we bought hotels and we moved the unhoused into the hotels because we thought it was unsafe for people to be on the streets. We did these things. We saw small business creation go up by 21%, and that has held steady year after year. And that is after decades of small business creation going down, which is very alarming to people who are concerned about, you know, entrepreneurialism in this country. And I just think that is a helpful data point about what it would mean just to begin to, if we begin to invest in families, what we'll see grow.
Carol Jenkins: Natalie, how we get from here to there. Talk to us about models we could use, perhaps Alaska, you know, the fund that they've set up, which is very appealing to me. Talk to us about, let's move forward. Let's get there. Let's do it.
Natalie Foster: Well, let's tell the story of guaranteed income, then. You're pointing out Alaska, where every Alaskan resident, kids and adults, get a check from the Permanent Fund, which is a sovereign wealth fund held by the state that both Republican and Democratic governors have supported over the years. And Alaskans see it as their commonly owned wealth. That check comes each year, and it is part of their commonly shared Wealth to receive it and I also find that really appealing and and nobody questions like should we be getting this money? Who should be getting this money? It's like every resident gets it and I think it's a great model. We were studying Alaska and we were studying several other cash transfer programs and, you know, several years ago, and the data is clear on when people have more cash in their pockets, they're better off. And I had the great fortune of sitting next to Michael Tubbs at a conference. He was a young mayor of Stockton, California. One of the youngest mayors in the nation himself grew up in poverty, went to school at Stanford and moved back to Stockton to run for mayor and serve. And I was saying, you know, there's all this data about giving people money. We just need an American city to try this.
And young Mayor Tubbs said, I want to be the first. I've been thinking about that as well. You know, we both read Dr. King, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.' 's final book. Where do we go from here? Chaos or community? And in that book, Dr. King lays out a guaranteed minimum income and how it would abolish poverty and be an important fight in both the racial justice and economic justice futures that we deserve. So fast forward, Mayor Michael Tubbs launches a demonstration in Stockton. It's like the first city-led demonstration in modern history and 125 families got $500 a month with no strings attached. And month after month, the data showed how people fared, how much better people fared with just $500 a month. And more cities picked up the cause, more cities tried it, more mayors tried it, nonprofit leaders like Dr. Ayesha Yandaro in Jackson, Mississippi started programs, and it grew and grew and grew. And 160 cities now across this country where people are demonstrating this North Star of what it would look like to guarantee income.
And then the pandemic hit, and lawmakers reached for an idea that was tried and true, that had data behind it, and that had popularity. And they passed the expanded child tax credit, which is a guaranteed income for families, as we started talking about earlier in the call. So we were laughed out of rooms when we started talking about the idea of just giving people money. It seemed so absurd to the serious people out there. And in just a few short years, it moved from the margins to the mainstream of an idea such that Congress picked it up and moved it forward in a crisis. And it's actually a Milton Friedman quote that has stuck with me that said, it's only in a crisis, whether real or perceived, that progress is made and ideas that are lying around, they get picked up and moved forward. I'm paraphrasing, but that's roughly what he said.
And that is exactly what I think we've seen in this country. Now, so much of it during that period of time has gone away. And that's true, right? A lot of the pandemic policy making. But I think it's important to know that it is the blueprint that we know how to do this and can do this in a crisis, real or perceived, right? Whether it's climate chaos or whether it's AI's big impact that it will have undoubtedly on jobs across this country, that we know how to build out these guarantees.
David Ambroz: What I love in talking with you is you're a, eminently quotable, really good snippets. I always had this image when I was in foster care. I was told, you know, Dr. King's quote that the moral arc of the universe is long but bends towards justice. And I was in a very negative foster care placement. And I remember thinking that's bull. What I've evolved to think as I got older was, no, it's true, but the only reason it bends is because there's people at the end of that arc pulling it down toward justice. People like Dr. King, the children, the people that are overlooked, demand and pull that arc towards justice. So I love that you brought that up. I guess I have, for me, one final question. And when you think about how do we get there, Dr. King's book, you know, where do we go from here? I think the follow up in my mind listening to you is how do we get there? And I guess I give you a prompt. It doesn't seem that data and facts are really persuasive in this moment.
So you've referenced the number of jurisdictions that have implemented and it works. But I'm not always sure at this point in our kind of political culture, as it is, you know, we could have opinions about it. But the reality is, is that facts and information don't necessarily move policy. So in that context, how do we bring our fellow citizens to a place where, if it's not facts, how do we get the story right so that we can convince and collaborate with folks to help them see your vision? And I think it's a vision I love, which is helping people. But how do we bridge that chasm in this moment?
Natalie Foster: How do we bridge that chasm in this moment? I think that is the question on all of our minds in this period.
David Ambroz: Solve it. Solve it, Natalie.
Natalie Foster: I think a couple of things. One is that, you know, we have to have new narratives and stories that are as sticky and meaningful to people as the old ones were, right? They stuck around for generations. And I think of the work Mia Birdsong is doing with Next River, where she's reimagining freedom to be a collective freedom, a freedom to be together, an understanding of freedom that if you're not free, I'm not free, and that our liberation is tied up together. And so I think there's narratives and stories like that that are incredibly important to build out. And frankly, we're seeing the way narratives move in a very different way than they were even a few short years ago.
And I actually take some hope from that, because if you take a second and look at what young TikTokers are saying about this economy, they're clear that this economy is not working for them, that the coming AI tsunami will have a huge impact on their job prospects, and that they don't want anything to do with an old system that failed. They want something new and they want to value their time and they want, you know, so they're there and I think it's important that these stories are there and are moving in those spaces. So that's one. But then two, I think we have to build community and political power at the local level. We have to elect people who believe that the American economy can be about supporting families. And we have to hold them accountable to that vision. And we'll have a chance to do that in 2026 and in 2029. And that's going to be important to do.
David Ambroz: To summarize what I heard you say is storytelling, and I could not agree more. I think we've lost the narrative in some respects, and we have the opportunity to regain that with powerful stories in our communities. I really, really like that. And the other thing is harnessing political power at the very moment people are walking away. Disillusioned is the moment we need folks to reengage, especially locally. So I love that. So thank you.
Carol Jenkins: And Natalie, thank you so much for your book, for the activism organization you run on so many levels. You are making that difference. We trust you. We're following you. Go forth.
Natalie Foster: Carol, that is really meaningful to hear. And I really appreciate that. And I've so appreciated all the stories that you've uplifted over the years. So thank you.
Carol Jenkins: In Natalie's interview, we talk briefly about Alaska's Permanent Fund Dividend, a cash sum given to every person, adult and child, every year in Alaska. We explore that a bit more with NYU professor Sarah Cowan, founder of the Cash Transfer Lab, researching the effectiveness of cash guarantees like the Alaska Fund. Sarah, thanks so much for joining us. We've been hearing about your magnificent work If you could tell us first about the cash lab, and then we want to know everything about Alaska.
Sarah Cowan: There's a lot of interest in giving people cash. It sounds so simple. And in fact, the United States and other countries around the world have been doing it for some time. We see people getting cash through temporary aid to needy families, which used to be called aid to dependent families with children. So, there are a lot of programs by which Americans receive cash and specifically unearned cash. So, this is different from wages. This is different from dividends or investment income. This is unearned cash. So, there is increasing interest in this. Topic and so I started a lab at my employer at New York University, but we partner with scholars and practitioners all across the globe. Who are interested in the nuts and bolts and most importantly, the effect. of giving people cash.
Carol Jenkins: We recently know because of the child tax credit and the cash that was distributed on a monthly basis that how magnificent that was. But we're looking for that to happen again, of course, even bigger and better, but also in many other ways where philanthropists are now beginning to do it that way. We know the Bridge Project and Holly Fogle are terrific work in that regard.
Sarah Cowan: Absolutely, becoming an increasingly popular tool by which to distribute resources for municipalities, for state governments. Obviously, we saw it with the federal government, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as philanthropies. And giving people cash has natural appeal. There are just some fundamental benefits that come with the fact that this is really flexible. It confers autonomy. People get to use cash the way that it best serves them and their families and their communities. It confers dignity. That's what we pay wages in. It's the means by which. things happen in the United States. And so, there are just natural benefits to providing resources that way.
Carol Jenkins: Yeah. In reading about you, I saw that you said we don't really know that much about it, though. We don't have a long history of it, except that you do have one in Alaska, the Alaska Permanent Fund. Tell us about that.
Sarah Cowan: So, this is an unusual and exemplary policy. Alaska becomes a state in 1959. And pretty shortly thereafter, you know, late 70s, there's a beginning of an oil boom. And the policymakers, the leaders of Alaska at that time recognized that this bounty was going to dramatically change Alaska. They also recognized That this was dependent on a finite resource. Mainly oil and so what they did was they established a sovereign wealth fund. And so the way in which this worked and continues to work is that.
A portion of the money that the state gets from oil extraction and from moving oil out of the state goes into what is essentially a mutual fund. That grows, that money that initially comes from oil is then invested by a team of investment professionals, just like in a mutual fund, in a broad array, a diverse array of assets. And one of the goals was to make sure that the Alaskan economy was less dependent on oil. And beginning in 1982, every Alaskan resident, so it doesn't matter if you are wealthy, or if you are impoverished, or if you are a kid, or if you are 75, will share in the revenue from the Sovereign Wealth Fund.
Carol Jenkins: So it's if you have a family, a mother, a father, three kids, that means each of the five receives their share of the profits in this fund, right?
Sarah Cowan: That's exactly right. So that also means that year to year, the amount that people get fluctuates because it's dependent on how well the sovereign wealth fund is performing. It also means that in years in which the performance is really terrific, then the amount of the dividend is very high. If I recall correctly, the highest it's been is $3,100 a person. That is a lot of money. I track it as benchmark to things like the earned income tax credit or the value of food stamps, which is formally known as SNAP. And in many years, the size of the dividend for a family of four exceeds the value of the earned income tax credit or SNAP, which are really cornerstones of the United States social safety net. Because this is distributed to every Alaskan, it doesn't also come with the same kind of stigma that receiving other benefits, means-tested benefits, benefits for primarily poor people have across the nation.
Carol Jenkins: And Alaska is not a poor state. Overall, the poverty rate is quite low, right, at 10 or 11 percent, but you do have pockets of severe poverty.
Sarah Cowan: Yes, that's absolutely right. And this distribution, this money, reduces the poverty rate in Alaska. That being said, In every community in the United States, there are people who are unconscionably impoverished. Those families, they suffer and they do not reach the potential that they have the capacity to because of their impoverishment.
Carol Jenkins: So, in many cases in Alaska, it's the tribal communities, the indigenous who have a much higher poverty rate in the 25, almost 30%.
Sarah Cowan: Yes, that's right. So, the indigenous population in Alaska, the Alaska Native population does have higher rates of impoverishment. But I also want to be clear that that is impoverishment measured in a very particular way, which is about family income. There are other measures that also show that Alaska Native people are disadvantaged, but it is also the case that Alaska Native people have all sorts of individual and community assets that we don't typically measure, but we understand to be important. So, some we do typically measure. If you are impoverished and you're living in New York City, you have a hard time getting your own food. If you are impoverished and you are living on your ancestral homelands in Alaska, you may very well have been raised to hunt and fish, and you have those skills and can provide for your family and your community, but not in a way that would get measured by the census.
Carol Jenkins: Sure. Well, talk to us about what you've learned. You have some good outcomes from this cash distribution.
Sarah Cowan: We study this cash distribution in relationship to a whole host of outcomes, and we prioritize the ones that Alaskans tell us that they want to know about and prioritize the ones that we can do an adequate scientific job. So if the data aren't available, even if we really want to know the answer and it would be really helpful to Alaskans, we do our best, but we are not going to do bad science. And the way in which I think about them in terms of fears, so things that could go wrong, as well as things I could go right. But I wanna give you a top line, and the top line is that this policy hits what I consider to be the three E's. It is, maybe there's even a four E. It's effective, it makes economic sense, it is efficient, and it is ethical. So that's the top line. So some fears that we have. When I go and talk to folks in Alaska and around the country, I get a similar set of fears about what could happen if you give people cash, unearned cash.
And I also want to be clear that a lot of these fears are rooted in American distrust of poor people and marginalized people. They are not actually rooted in science. and they might be rooted in stereotype and anecdote. I want to be clear about the origins of these questions and these fears. So, one is that if you give people money, they're going to stop working. What it really means is that they're going to stop working for pay. That doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to stop working, doing things that are important for themselves, their family, and their community. So, what we have found is that By and large, people do not retreat from working when they receive unearned cash. The exception is that there is some retreat by women who have young children.
So, the best interpretation, the most likely interpretation, is that those people are diverting their energies from wage work to unpaid work of taking care of their own children. The other fear is that people are going to use the money in a way that makes life more dangerous. That typically means fears that people are going to spend this money to get drunk and crash their car or take drugs and get into a fight. When we look at hospital admissions data, looking at injury and mortality, we do not find that to be the case. Everyone in Alaska gets the money on the same day. So we can go and we can look at hospital admissions, like how dangerous are things in the days before they get the money and how dangerous are things after they get the money. It doesn't make a difference. The third one, which a lot of people put in the realm of fear, that's how the question originates, but I actually shift it into good things, is do people have more babies?
And the answer is, to the best we can measure, yes. There are people who would not have had a baby, but do because of this money. But there are some What we have less good evidence on is whether or not that's a baby who came into the world earlier, or that's a baby who wouldn't have been born otherwise. Either way, I interpret this as there was an economic barrier to having a baby, and that economic barrier was lifted, and that's wonderful. It's wonderful because babies are wonderful, but it's also wonderful because it means that someone was really able to make a more free and autonomous decision about their family.
Carol Jenkins: And haven't you discovered too that the babies may be healthier as well and the mothers may be safer as well?
Sarah Cowan: Yes, absolutely. So we see that there are improvements in newborn health. We see that there are improvements in terms of breastfeeding. We also see that there are improvements in childhood health, and we see that there are improvements in the number of cases that are reported to Child Protective Services. Now, I want to be clear that there are people and there are children for whom this money is dangerous. We know from these reports that there are unhoused people who have been murdered for their money. I speak to adolescents who are in the foster care system, and they will say that when their parents got this money, they were at greater risk. In any community that's as large as Alaska, which is about 750,000 people, there is going to be someone who gets drunk and crashes their car. That happens, but it does not happen so often as to make this bad policy for a whole community. In fact, all evidence suggests that it is a good policy.
Carol Jenkins: So, it's good. How do we replicate it then? How do we get people to not be afraid of people not working? Well, the good part about the Alaska system is that everyone gets it. It really is not for the impoverished. It's every single citizen of Alaska. So how do we spread this notion of giving people cash?
Sarah Cowan: It's a great question, and it's one I don't have a terrific answer to. One of the things that I take really seriously as an expert is to try and be clear when there's something I'm not so sure about. And so, I will tell you my thoughts, but I don't have terrific evidence for them. So, that caveat being said, there are a couple of things that have struck me when I talk to people about this. And one of them is that a whole set of people actively reject even asking these questions. I met with a state senator and I said, you know, what questions do you have? And he said, I'll tell you what I don't have.
I don't have questions about how people spend the money because that's none of my business. Because this is their money and they get this money because they are Alaskan. And he said, I don't ask people how they spend their, you know, their paycheck. I'm not going to ask them how they spend this money. There are a lot of reasons why it matters that this is a universal policy, but I think that's at the heart of it, is that when it's understood as you get this because you are Alaskan, which is a great thing, and not you get this because you have a problem, or maybe even you are a problem, then the whole policy is endowed with trust.
Carol Jenkins: So the concept of baby
Sarah Cowan: And when you look at the history of policy in the United States, a lot of policies start with families with young children, with women with children, with pregnant women. And then they expand outward. So it's no surprise when you know the history that it will begin with this population. And there's good scientific reason because investing in children earlier in their life, that's when you can move the needle the most. Universality, we're far from that. I don't foresee us getting there anytime soon. And part of the reason for that is that at first glance, it's inefficient. It appears like, you know, I've got a steady job and I can pay all my bills, so why would I get any money? So, at first glance, it appears inefficient. At second glance, there's actually a lot of efficiencies to be gained. But how do you get people past that first glance? I don't know.
Carol Jenkins: One of the programs I was intrigued by that I didn't know that in New York State there is a universal program for artists. I don't know how long that goes, but that's such a great to me use of giving money to creative people who may not be able to support themselves, although working every single day at their craft.
Sarah Cowan: I agree with you. And also, while giving money to pregnant women or women with young children, while that's an easy sell, generally, giving money to artists is a much harder sell, generally. There is a general sense that art is a luxury item. And, you know, if you're giving money to Picasso, probably people can get behind that. But, of course, Picasso is genius and a rarity. So, yeah, that is a harder sell. The folks who pitched this program with a recognition of how much artists contribute to New York State, you know, that New York City and New York State are art, this is like an art capital. And that is something that we never would want to lose. But it's a hard sell.
Carol Jenkins: What would you want people to know about universal income, giving cash to people?
Sarah Cowan: When we think about the policies that we have on a federal level, they have a hard time reaching all of the families that would be eligible for this benefit. One of the reasons why is because it's really hard to get those benefits. the paperwork involved, the amount of time involved, but you make a small mistake in your paperwork and you're trying to get welfare benefits, now you're not getting those welfare benefits. So, when you do something that's so hard to do and it involves a breach of privacy, it's undignified, you end up not reaching the people you want to reach. Whereas in Alaska, they do an excellent job of reaching the people who they want to reach.
And part of the reason why they do that is because they make it so simple to get this benefit. And the onus of fraud detection, so a lot of these systems that we have in place are to prevent fraud, which is an excellent goal. And we place the burden of it on poor people, on their families, as opposed to on the state. So in Alaska, the burden of fraud detection is on the state. In Social Security, the burden of fraud detection is on the state. And in making that administrative choice, then it actually becomes a lot easier to reach the people that you're trying to reach.
Carol Jenkins: Well, Sarah, thank you very, very much. It's exciting, and we do want to come to Alaska. I'll be your tour guide. Excellent, excellent. A note about our podcast going forward, Jeff Matrick and I are delighted that we'll be joined by a great team of guest co-hosts as we continue our work of ending child poverty in the United States. Here's more from co-host David Ambrose. The paperback version of his memoir, A Place Called Home, is just out. It is a must read if you care about our children.
David Ambroz: In 2022, my memoir, A Place Called Home, came out, and the last three years have been an incredible journey. Not only has it become a bestseller and been noted in all sorts of lists, but more importantly to me, it has changed the conversation as it relates to kids in poverty, foster care, and our collective ability to do better by these kids. I have come and gone from one corner of the country to another, from Texas to Arizona to Indiana to New York, to have conversations in rooms that I never thought I would be in with people on all sides of the political spectrum. Those conversations have often been fraught, but we've hit a goal, which I wrote about, which is we can do better. In my memoir, I share the story of growing up for 12 years homeless, mostly in New York City, with my mom and two siblings. It was an absolutely brutal existence.
And as imperfect as our social welfare safety net is and was, it certainly was the reason that I survived. Entering foster care was another ongoing disaster for me and my brother and sister. With one exception, I careened from one type of torture in that system to another, barely surviving, but I did. I shared the story in my memoir because I felt so strongly that the 10 million children in this country living in poverty deserve better. I always think about 10 years before I was born, this country sent a person to the moon. It was not an easy feat. but we did not outsource it. And I believe that spirit is right there in our grasp that we can make a different choice. Child poverty in the United States of America is a choice. We can make a different choice.
Other than the laws of physics, everything is a choice. When I shared it, I shared stories in this book that I never even shared with my loved ones. And the reason I did that is because the only way I think we're going to change hearts and minds of our fellow citizens to support a different vision for our children and families is that we share each other's stories. People have reached out to me on all the different platforms and related their own connection to the issue. I've tried to approach the conversations with humility and deep respect, because my story growing up in an ultra-urban environment is not exactly the same. But no matter where you grew up, when you struggled, we are brothers and sisters, therefore.
And so I've been very touched by people relating to the material in the book. The book has been called a memoir with a mission. which I love, and you're damn right it is, has a mission. The mission is that we open our eyes and look squarely at these children and do better by them. I believe in this country we're better than this. We're better than this verbal civil war. We're better than another generation of kids growing up the way that I did. We can be a country that scrolls mindlessly looking down at our phones, or we can look up. We can be a country that cures cancer, or we can be a country that doesn't even remember what we liked a moment ago. My mom always would say to me, you're never going to see where you're going if you're looking down. And she's right. I need us to look up, to look up at a horizon where we can do better. In the book, I concretely provide some ideas. And the coolest aspect of this book has not just been the relations with perfect strangers that I've developed, but actual policies being passed in red and blue states alike, right out of the book and somewhat because of the book. That has been the most impactful and profound thing for me. And finally, I'll just say the paperback coming out is incredibly important.
Why? Stories like this are too often overlooked. They're too often considered, oh, I don't want to read about child abuse or struggle. But that's not what this book is about. This book is about offering a real glimpse into America's permanent underclass poverty, what it took to get out of it, and what we might do so others don't go through it. I hope people find the paperback. It's available everywhere. and share it, not just with people who might have an interest in it because of their politics or their personal experience, but share it with people who you think might not. The only way we're going to convince each other of a different outcome for kids is if we share stories like this, not just mine, but others. It's through stories, I think, that we can relate to each other and be the best country we know we can be with no permanent underclass of anyone, including 10 million children living in poverty. The memoir comes out May 5th, 2025. It's available everywhere and I hope you'll find it, read it, enjoy it, and share it.
Carol Jenkins: Thanks so much for joining us on the Invisible Americans podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts, but we urge you to visit our website for transcripts, show notes, research, and additional information about our guests and their work. That's www.theinvisibleamericans.com. Please follow us on social media and our new YouTube channel, and our blog posts are up on Medium as well as our website. That's www.theinvisibleamericans.com. Jeff and I will see you the next time.
Author of "A Place Called Home"
David Ambroz is a national poverty and child welfare expert and advocate. He was recognized by President Obama as an American Champion of Change. Currently serving as the Head of Community Engagement (West) for Amazon, Ambroz previously led Corporate Social Responsibility for Walt Disney Television, and has served as president of the Los Angeles City Planning Commission as well as a California Child Welfare Council member.
After growing up homeless and then in foster care, he graduated from Vassar College and later earned his J.D. from UCLA School of Law. He is a foster dad and lives in Los Angeles, CA.
President and co-founder of Economic Security Project
Natalie Foster is a leading architect of the movement to build an inclusive and resilient economy that works for all. She’s president and co-founder of Economic Security Project, a senior fellow at the Aspen Institute Future of Work Initiative, and the author of “The Guarantee: Inside the Fight For America’s Next Economy.” Natalie speaks and writes regularly on economic security, the future of work, and the new political economy. An unstoppable builder, Natalie previously founded the sharing economy community Peers, co-founded Rebuild the Dream with Van Jones, and served as Digital Director for President Obama's Organizing for America - a leading partner in winning transformative healthcare reform. A daughter of a preacher from Kansas, Natalie draws on the values of community, dignity, and optimism to build a better America. She lives in Oakland, California with her husband and two kids.
Executive Director of the Cash Transfer Lab
Sarah K. Cowan, Ph.D. is a professor of Sociology at New York University. Dr. Cowan is an award-winning scholar and teacher who founded and is the Executive Director of the Cash Transfer Lab. She is an expert on childbearing in the United States, maternal and newborn health and cash transfers.
