# Experimental Evidence on the Impact of Parental Income on Child Health and Well Being

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR · 2024 · $366,047

## Abstract

Project Summary
Disparities in health and well-being among children in families with different incomes emerge
early in life. Children in poor families are born with worse health than their counterparts in
higher income families, and this relationship between health and income becomes more
pronounced through the life cycle. Children who experience worse health early in life also go on
to have significantly lower educational attainment, health, and socio-economic status in
adulthood. This relationship suggests that the intergenerational transmission of advantage that
we observe within families could be driven by the good health that wealthy parents confer to
their children early in life. Understanding how unequal parental incomes result in unequal
health in childhood may therefore help us understand patterns of income inequality and
intergenerational economic mobility more generally and also help policymakers make informed
decisions about the efficacy of cash transfers. We propose to provide new evidence on the
relationship between parental income and children's mental and physical health and well-being
through the Y Combinator Research (YCR) Basic Income randomized controlled trial. The YCR
experiment will provide $1,000 per month of supplemental income to a randomly-selected
treatment group over a period of three years, with a control group receiving $50 per month over
the same period. The 3,000 participants in the study have 3,640 children under the age 18 living
in their household. We will survey participants about their children and leverage existing
administrative datasets to obtain information on the impact of this income supplement on
children's health outcomes. By comparing children of treatment group participants to control
group participants, we will document how parental income affects the quality of the household
environment and parental interactions (Aim 1), and investment in children's well-being
including access to and use of medical care, food security, expenditures on enrichment and
activities, neighborhood quality, and the quality of non-parental care (Aim 2) and childhood
emotional, conduct, hyperactivity/inattention and peer relationship problems, pro-social
behavior, achievement of developmental milestones, cognitive development and physical health
(Aim 3). Our study will provide new, timely, and policy-relevant estimates on the impact of
parental income on child health and well-being and the mechanisms through which this
relationship operates.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10893510
- **Project number:** 5R01HD103699-04
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN AT ANN ARBOR
- **Principal Investigator:** Sarah Marie Miller
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $366,047
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2021-09-01 → 2026-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10893510

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10893510, Experimental Evidence on the Impact of Parental Income on Child Health and Well Being (5R01HD103699-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-27 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10893510. Licensed CC0.

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