In Wednesday night’s WXYZ mayoral debate, Mary Sheffield and Rev. Solomon Kinloch Jr. confronted a central question from anchors Carolyn Clifford and Chuck Stokes: “How will your administration combat poverty?”
Rather than default to policing or infrastructure, both candidates pivoted toward child-centered financial proposals — Sheffield invoking the Rx Kids model, and Kinloch unveiling his “Kinloch Promise,” a children’s trust fund of $1,000 annually until age 18.
Sheffield declared, “We are looking forward to exploring Rx Kids program to Detroit that provides direct funding to pregnant moms.”
On her campaign website, Sheffield frames her candidacy around supporting families, expanding services, and aligning city resources to uplift the most vulnerable.
Kinloch said: “The Kinloch Promise will include a children’s trust fund where every baby born in the city of Detroit will receive a seed of $1,000. It will be allocated on a yearly basis up until that child gets to the age of 18 and they can use that to open a business, to go to college, start a career, buy a home or invest into their community.”
His campaign site outlines “Raise Healthy Families & Thriving Kids” as a core pillar of his platform.
Sheffield’s invocation of Rx Kids isn’t rhetorical: the program is real and expanding throughout Michigan. Originally launched in Flint in 2024, Rx Kids delivers $1,500 during pregnancy and then $500 per month for the baby for six to twelve months.
The program has already been adopted in multiple Michigan communities such as, Flint, Pontiac, Kalamazoo, and parts of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, and aims to reach dozens more communities in the coming years delivering more than $15 million in cash prescriptions to over 3,600 families across 11 Michigan locales. The expansion is backed by a $270 million allocation in the 2025 state budget, intended to scale and reach toward 100,000 babies over three years.
In Flint alone, Rx Kids reported over $11.3 million prescribed and enrollment of more than 2,000 families. Early impact evaluations in Flint show improvements in birth weight, reduced NICU admissions, and positive mental health effects among mothers. The Michigan State University pediatric public health initiative, in partnership with GiveDirectly and Poverty Solutions at the University of Michigan, administers the program.
By referencing Rx Kids, Sheffield is signaling she intends to bring a tested, evidence-based cash support model to Detroit. But her campaign stops short of fully specifying funding sources, oversight, or phasing — a gap she’ll need to fill in forthcoming policy rollouts.
Kinloch’s trust fund promise, by contrast, is more conceptual at this point.
His site describes the Promise as an investment in children’s financial capital from birth onward — part of a broader agenda that includes jobs, housing, and economic inclusion. But his campaign does not yet publish line-item fiscal plans, revenue mechanisms, or administrative frameworks for how that $1,000 annual deposit would be funded or managed at scale across Detroit.
During the debate, neither candidate fully resolved the same set of practical questions: Will funding come from new taxes, philanthropic partnerships, or city reallocation? Will the programs be universal or means-tested? Who will oversee and audit disbursements and prevent misuse? How will benefits be fairly distributed across Detroit’s most underserved neighborhoods?
Still, the framing shift is significant.
Detroit’s next mayoral race is no longer solely about crime, blight, or transit — it’s also about how much the city will invest in its youngest residents from day one. Sheffield’s campaign emphasizes applying Rx Kids as a first step, integrated with coordinated social services, early education, and a proposed “Office of Human, Family, and Homeless Services.”
Kinloch’s campaign presents generational capital-building as the linchpin of his vision, rejecting incrementalism in favor of structural empowerment.
Detroit’s mayor lacks direct control over state welfare, federal programs, or education funding but the office can marshal partnerships, set priorities, and signal political will. In invoking cash support from pregnancy through childhood, both candidates stake a claim on redefining how the city supports its families.
As November draws near, Detroit voters will need specificity on how each candidate plans to raise the city’s youth from poverty and better understand which plan could realistically scale in a fiscally constrained city. Which design ensures accountability, equity, and sustainability? Whose vision treats children born in Detroit not as future beneficiaries, but as asset holders from day one?
