In a crisis, prepaid cards expedite relief funds to Wayne County residents

When the Wayne County Economic Development Department needed to provide financial assistance to residents most impacted by COVID-19, we were determined to act as swiftly as possible.

December 2020 was a dire time for most Americans, including the millions of residents that call the Detroit-area and Wayne County home. Business shutdowns related to the COVID-19 pandemic took an economic toll—especially in public-facing businesses whose employees could not work from home.

Many residents did not know when they would be allowed to return to work or even if their jobs would still be there when the pandemic was over. And in the meantime, they had bills to pay and mouths to feed.

To provide added relief throughout the holidays, Wayne County mobilized resources to distribute $500 one-time, no-strings-attached payments to workers in the restaurant, fitness and entertainment industries. These are important sectors for us. In Wayne County, which includes the city of Detroit, those industries employ a large portion of our population and greatly contribute to the economy.

Traditionally, we would have issued a paper check to eligible recipients. But we understood concerns related to the handling of physical checks during a health crisis.

During the pandemic, consumers became averse to handling paper, including checks. Under or unbanked individuals (a group that includes many young people), who often find it difficult to find a place that will cash a check, found it even more difficult during the lockdown period of the pandemic, especially if they didn’t have access to a vehicle. In these cases, many end up going to check cashing services, which may charge exorbitant fees. Additionally, checks can be lost or stolen, and must be cashed or deposited, which takes time.

Instead of issuing paper checks, we collaborated with Fiserv to distribute funds via pre-loaded prepaid cards as part of their Money Network program—with Fiserv executing end-to-end program management, including card production and distribution to our residents within a matter of weeks. By distributing prepaid cards, we put money in our residents’ hands that could be used immediately upon receipt, whether they needed to buy goods online or in-store. This was an important consideration when so much commerce shifted to the web—including services such as grocery shopping and restaurant delivery.

We saw prepaid cards as the best way to help our residents and the fastest way to inject money into our local economy. It worked. We allocated $6 million to fund 12,000 cards, which were distributed within a short timeframe. With the holidays creating financial stress for many, we were proud to be able to distribute every card before the calendar flipped to 2021. In addition to distribution, the Money Network program included fraud protection, a card replacement program and control features that helped us ensure the program was beneficial to our community.

In addition to all the benefits previously described, using prepaid cards helped us provide necessary assistance to residents without overburdening our own payment processing systems.

As the pandemic remains and other disasters occur, there continues to be a need for direct assistance to residents—and prepaid cards will remain an important tool for us to use. We are building the prepaid card methodology into our program design as we develop additional emergency response programs. For example, we are providing financial assistance to help residents cover damages incurred due to local flooding events of late June 2021. This assistance will be provided in the form of prepaid cash cards.

Prepaid cards were the right tool for the job during an extremely difficult period. But they are more than that. They represent a better, safer, more modern way of disbursing funds to the communities we serve.

Tiffani C. Jackson is spokesperson and director of media relations for the Wayne County Department of Public Services. In this role, she focuses on community relations, content creation, project management, and operations analysis in support of the Office of Wayne County Executive Warren C. Evans. Jackson previously held leadership roles at Wayne County management and budget. Astute on many platforms, Jackson has managed communications strategies for numerous political campaigns, coordinated outreach initiatives for the homeless, and mentors youth and young adults. Jackson founded the non-profit Eden Community Organization promoting education beyond the classroom through tutoring and also Doughnuts and Devotionals, fostering sisterhood through the embodiment of biblically based principles among young professional women