Poor To Get Cash Reward For Behavior

The Bloomberg administration is launching a groundbreaking pilot program to give poor families up to $5,000 a year in cash incentives to meet specific goals, such as visiting a doctor for an annual checkup, securing a job, or sending children to school on a regular basis.

Five thousand families living below the poverty level or slightly above will be selected to participate in the two-year pilot program, Opportunity NYC, which is scheduled to begin in September.

"The stress of poverty often causes people to make decisions that are detrimental to their future," Mr. Bloomberg said yesterday during a press conference at the Brownsville Multi-Service Family Health Center in Brooklyn. "Struggling families are so focused on surviving today that often they can't afford to plan for tomorrow."

Similar cash-incentive programs exist in several other countries, but Opportunity NYC is believed to be the first of its kind in America. The goal of the program is to help families move out of poverty, Mr. Bloomberg said.

Half of the families selected for the program will be eligible for the cash incentives, and the other half will serve as a control group. A single mother raising two children will have to earn about $20,000 or less to participate in the program.

Payments will vary based on the task completed. If a child has exemplary school attendance during the two-month period, for example, his or her parents might receive between $20 and $50. Finding a new job or visiting a doctor is likely to be rewarded with more money.

The program will be run with $50 million in private funds. The city already has raised $42 million, and Mr. Bloomberg donated between $2 million and $10 million, although his staff members would not disclose the exact amount.

It is unclear how the program will be funded in the future, if the pilot is considered a success. When asked if it should be funded by the city, Mr. Bloomberg said, "The government should exercise its responsibility and take care of those who are less fortunate in our society."

A fellow at the Manhattan Institute, Heather Mac Donald, criticized the plan yesterday, saying it could be the most disastrous welfare policy ever crafted.

"It could destroy the ordinary incentive system that usually motivates people to engage in good" behavior, she said. "You are going to create in people the expectation that they should do such proper things as take their children to school or study only if they are bribed by the government. I think the potential for unintentional consequences for this program are absolutely enormous."

City officials still are working out the final details of the program and have not yet finished compiling a list of all the tasks that must be completed for a family to receive the full $5,000.

Mr. Bloomberg and the deputy mayor for health and human services, Linda Gibbs, are traveling to Mexico on April 24 to study the way a similar program works there.