{"id":283790,"date":"2025-10-07T10:44:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T10:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/283790\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T10:44:13","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T10:44:13","slug":"philadelphia-marks-first-year-of-philly-joy-bank-income-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/283790\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia marks first year of Philly Joy Bank income program"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Program leaders said they hope the guaranteed monthly income can <a href=\"https:\/\/jamanetwork.com\/journals\/jamanetworkopen\/fullarticle\/2785593\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">help families pay<\/a> for resources that may otherwise be out of reach, or be able to handle unexpected costs and income loss.\n<\/p>\n<p>New mother Iyanna L. said she was grateful the money was there when she had to stop working after developing hyperemesis gravidarum, a severe form of constant nausea and vomiting that lasted nearly her entire pregnancy.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think at first, I was stressing, because it was like, you don\u2019t want to think about money, but you need it. You have to,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n<p>It was a relief, she said, when she began receiving $1,000 payments from the Philly Joy Bank.\n  <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI never went without food, I never went without transportation to a doctor\u2019s appointment, I was good,\u201d she said. \u201cI didn\u2019t have everything I wanted. I didn\u2019t have my house, the car and all that at the time, but this program definitely helped me get all the resources.\u201d<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-718124\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/philly-joy-bank-n-leonard-2025-10-06-2-1024x690.jpg\" alt=\"A woman holding a baby\" width=\"640\" height=\"431\"  \/>The Philly Joy Bank guaranteed income pilot program launched last summer. The program enrolled a total of 250 pregnant women living in Cobbs Creek, Strawberry Mansion and Nicetown-Tioga, neighborhoods with the highest rates of infants born at very low birthweights. (Nicole Leonard\/WHYY)\n<\/p>\n<p>At Smith Memorial Playground and Playhouse, Iyanna smiled and watched a Philly Joy Bank staff member cuddle her son, who is now 7 months old. The two recently moved into their own apartment.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI never knew programs like this even existed,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n<p>Families sat at picnic tables with some food and drinks while groups of older siblings ran around outside or used markers to color in pictures of dinosaurs and animals.\n<\/p>\n<p>Fabienne and Victor chased their 20-month-old daughter while keeping an eye on their newborn, who slept in a car seat carrier.\n<\/p>\n<p>The parents, who enrolled in the Philly Joy Bank in February, called the program their insurance.<br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-718122\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/philly-joy-bank-n-leonard-2025-10-06-4-1024x745.jpg\" alt=\"A woman writes on a dry erase board\" width=\"640\" height=\"466\"  \/>The Philly Joy Bank provides $1,000 a month in unrestricted cash to mothers before and after pregnancy. The payments will last a total of 18 months. (Nicole Leonard\/WHYY)\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s our insurance of life,\u201d Victor said. \u201cThis program gives us a lot of confidence, a lot of confidence about the unexpected. Every time, every month, you try to plan your expenses, to plan your money, but every month you also have the unexpected.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<p>Something as simple as a parking ticket could easily derail their budgeting, said the father of two.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow, it\u2019s not a big deal, because we have Philly Joy Bank,\u201d Victor said.\n<\/p>\n<p>City officials say they\u2019re interested in expanding the program beyond the pilot cohort, but will wait to evaluate final research outcomes before deciding on the program\u2019s future.\n        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Program leaders said they hope the guaranteed monthly income can help families pay for resources that may otherwise&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":283791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,19949,31212,65345,1448,9475,2830,1311,11164,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-283790","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-department-of-health","10":"tag-financial-aid","11":"tag-mothers","12":"tag-pa","13":"tag-parents","14":"tag-pennsylvania","15":"tag-philadelphia","16":"tag-pregnancy","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115332479268632423","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}