Families facing poverty in Rochester struggle to meet urgent expenses due to limited access to flexible, immediate financial assistance.

Millions of Americans experience poverty, and in Rochester, New York, nearly 29.3% of residents live below the poverty line. Understanding whether predictable, flexible financial support can meaningfully improve outcomes is essential for helping local leaders make evidence‑based decisions and for informing broader policy conversations about economic mobility. A rigorous randomized controlled trial (RCT) offers the strongest way to isolate the impact of unconditional cash transfers and determine whether they can reduce economic volatility and strengthen long‑term household stability.

To meet this need, the City of Rochester and the Black Community Focus Fund launched a guaranteed basic income program providing monthly, unconditional cash payments to low‑income residents and partnered with the Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities (LEO) to evaluate its effects. Through a randomized assignment process, LEO aims to assess whether direct cash assistance improves economic stability, mental and physical well‑being, and housing security for households facing persistent hardship. Their interest is driven by rising poverty rates, urgent financial precarity among residents, and growing national momentum behind cash‑transfer strategies that give families greater autonomy to meet their needs.

NORC deployed a scalable, multi‑phase data collection strategy to reach diverse populations and ensure high‑quality survey results.

To evaluate Rochester’s guaranteed basic income program, NORC supported LEO’s randomized controlled trial by designing a multi‑phase data collection strategy capable of reaching a financially vulnerable population and producing rigorous, high‑quality survey data. Because the study relies on comparing treatment and control groups assigned through randomization, achieving strong participation across both groups was essential for maintaining the integrity of the RCT design. A core challenge was sustaining high response rates across two cohorts and two waves of follow‑up interviews, despite issues such as respondent mobility.

NORC implemented a multichannel outreach model—including email, SMS, and structured phone prompting—to maximize engagement while minimizing respondent burden across both randomized groups. This layered approach ensured balanced follow‑up and supported the study’s ability to detect meaningful differences between families receiving cash assistance and those in the control group.  The project underscores NORC’s strength in adapting and scaling data collection strategies to meet the demands of rigorous impact evaluations, reaching different populations—from small cohorts to large community samples—and providing clients with flexible, effective research solutions.