By Lara Burt | April 2026
Economic security is a cornerstone of a child’s healthy development, especially during the critical prenatal-to-three period when the foundations for lifelong learning, health, and well-being are formed. Research shows that the earliest years of life are a time of rapid brain development. A family’s ability to meet basic needs during these early years has lasting implications for a child’s future outcomes. Stable income, safe and affordable housing, access to nutritious food, and healthy environments are all essential conditions for infants and toddlers to thrive.
Yet, families with young children face unique and often compounding economic burdens. For example, child-related expenses—such as the high cost of child care, diapers, and formula—often coincide with reduced household income from unpaid leave or career interruptions during this time. As a result, many families experience their greatest financial strain just as stability matters most for healthy child development.
Recognizing that financial stability, along with safe homes and healthy environments, is essential for thriving children, families, and communities, the National League of Cities’ (NLC) Early Childhood Success Team created the Prenatal‑to‑Three Impact Lab. This nine-month initiative is designed to help cities translate evidence on early childhood development into actionable, locally driven solutions across policy, programmatic, and practice-based approaches. The Impact Lab supports city leaders in addressing key contributors to poor maternal and infant outcomes, including family economic security, housing instability, and climate and environmental factors, while fostering cross-sector collaboration within local systems.
The Impact Lab is intentionally structured to focus on both learning and action, allowing city leaders to deepen their understanding of the conditions that shape the well-being of the prenatal-to-three population. Through this process, the Impact Lab supports cities to examine a range of approaches—including policy change, program design, and shifts in practice—that have the potential to create lasting, meaningful change for their youngest residents and broader communities
Partnerships play a critical role in this work. Key partners for the economic security track of the Prenatal-to-Three Impact Lab include the New School’s Institute on Race, Power, and Political Economy, as well as NLC’s Economic Opportunity and Financial Empowerment (EOFE) team. Together, these partners offer a complementary and reinforcing approach to advancing economic equity. The New School contributes deep expertise on structural racism, economic inequality, and the power dynamics that shape child and family outcomes,while the EOFE team brings a strong track record of engaging and equipping city leaders to address the economic challenges facing financially insecure families across the country.
By combining rigorous analysis of root causes with practical, city-level leadership and action, these partnerships help cities better understand the drivers of disparities while identifying and implementing strategies that can shift systems and improve outcomes for children and families.
As this initiative launches, cities that have chosen to focus on family economic security are exploring a range of commitments to move forward over the course of the nine-month program. These include policies such as paid family leave and guaranteed income programs for expectant parents and families with infants and toddlers, as well as programs and policies that better support the early childhood workforce. Cities are also examining asset-building approaches, such as baby bonds and related child wealth-building strategies, as long-term investments to expand economic opportunity from birth.
As cities deepen their focus on supporting families during the crucial prenatal-to-three period, it is increasingly clear that economic security must be addressed as a core component of early childhood efforts. Strategies that stabilize income, reduce material hardship, strengthen the workforce of early childhood educators, and expand access to assets and opportunity are all critical to creating the conditions young children need to thrive.
Lara Burt is a Senior Program Specialist, Early Childhood Success within the Center for Municipal Strategies and Programs at the National League of Cities.