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Most young people transition to adulthood gradually, continuing to receive financial and emotional support from family well into adulthood. In contrast, young people who are in foster care primarily receive support through the foster care system and this support ends when they “age out” of the system. However, depending on their state of residence, young people still in the system on their 18th or 21st birthday lose access to these critical services and face a benefits cliff.
In 2023, the California Department of Social Services (CDSS) began administering a state-legislated intervention to provide former foster youth (FFY) unrestricted monthly GI payments of $750 for 18 months. The CDSS program is unique because it offers both GI and waivers that exclude GI from counting as income for some means-tested benefits, something that has not been part of similar domestic GI programs. This study examines whether GI improves outcomes for FFY across a range of outcomes including health, mental health, financial well-being, housing, food security, employment, and education.
Methods: We employed a randomized controlled trial design enrolling 776 former foster youth. Data sources include longitudinal surveys using validated scales administered at baseline, midpoint (three and nine months post-randomization), program exit, and 6 and 12 months post-exit. Last year we reported outcomes midpoint surveys and here we offer findings at program exit, discussing the extent to which impacts have sustained or attenuated. Differences between groups were tested using unadjusted chi-squared and t-tests.
Results: Results from the exit survey indicate that some outcomes from the 3-month survey sustained, while others attenuated. Similar to the 3-month outcomes, youth in the treatment group are less likely to have experienced homelessness/couch surfing in the past 12 months at program exit compared to youth in the control group during the same time period (30% vs. 41%, p<0.05). However, at 3 months youth were less likely to report financial stress (60% vs. 79%, p<0.001), have higher current wellbeing scores (p<0.001), and have lower perceived stress scores (p<0.05), but these impacts were no longer statistically significant at the time of the exit survey.
Conclusions and Implications: Young adults aging out of foster care at age 21 face greater challenges compared to their peers who are not child-welfare involved. This study suggests that 18 months of guaranteed income may help them achieve more housing stability. It may not help sustain improvements in financial stress, wellbeing, and stress, although measurement at program exit may be capturing the same, though delayed resource cliff they faced when leaving foster care. Future survey waves will examine these outcomes at 6 and 12 months after program exit.