Spotlight on Guaranteed Income
The U.S. saw a significant expansion of government assistance during the pandemic that provided a lifeline for families and dramatically reduced child poverty rates. While temporary, these expanded benefits, together with historic mobilizations for racial justice, brought renewed attention to longstanding efforts to expand the social safety net, including through proposals for an income guarantee. This LISC Institute for Community Power Spotlight gives an overview of guaranteed income proposals, policies, and lessons learned from rapidly-expanding pilots nationwide, and how guaranteed income can advance racial, economic, and gender justice.
From economic stimulus payments to an expanded Child Tax Credit, the U.S. saw an historic expansion of government assistance during the pandemic. In addition to providing a lifeline for families weathering the worst public health crisis in a century, these benefits had a dramatic impact on poverty rates. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that over 45 million people were lifted out of poverty in 2021, and child poverty fell to record lows, particularly among Black and Latinx children. And while expanded federal assistance programs were temporary and not universally available (undocumented immigrants were excluded, for example), together with historic mobilizations for racial justice, they brought renewed attention to longstanding efforts to expand the social safety net, including through proposals for an income guarantee.
Guaranteed income is a regular, unrestricted cash payment made to individuals. While there are many examples of both public and privately funded direct cash transfer programs around the world, in the U.S, the idea of a federal income guarantee goes back at least as far as the 1960’s, when Black women and other women of color affiliated with the National Welfare Rights Organization called for an income guarantee to advance racial, gender, and economic justice. Their work shaped the demands of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Civil Rights leaders for a guaranteed income, and a related demand for a federal jobs guarantee, to eliminate poverty and meet family and community needs. These principles continue to be reflected in organizing and advocacy efforts and policy proposals led by BIPOC communities. Meanwhile, guaranteed income pilots at the local level have proliferated in recent years, with over four dozen pilots launched just since 2020.
At same time, the defeat of an extension of the expanded Child Tax Credit and the Biden administration’s Build Back Better framework—which would have made historic investments in child care and other care work disproportionately performed by women of color—highlights the ongoing power of harmful, racist narratives about public benefits. Ongoing organizing and movement-building is needed to overcome these barriers and scale income guarantees from local, often privately funded pilots into transformative national policies.
This Spotlight highlights resources on guaranteed income for community development practitioners. An article by the LISC Institute for Community Power gives an overview of guaranteed income and the current national landscape, and a feature by LISC Atlanta and the Georgia Resilience and Opportunity Fund shares lessons learned from their guaranteed income pilot designed by and for Black women in Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward, which combines people and place-based community development strategies to redress longstanding injustices. You’ll also find reporting on recent pilots throughout the country, research briefs and policy recommendations, and guides for designing programs that center racial and gender justice.
Features
The LISC Institute for Community Power gives an overview of the racial justice roots of guaranteed income, pilot programs gaining momentum around the country, and how these initiatives point to transformative policy solutions.
LISC Atlanta and the Georgia Resilience and Opportunity Fund share lessons learned from their recently-launched guaranteed income program in Atlanta, focused on Black women in the Old Fourth Ward, and how combining people and place-based community development strategies can redress longstanding injustices.
In Practice
The Economic Security Project devotes grants, research, and policy efforts to expanding guaranteed income programs, and has contributed to a number of reports and guides.
The Guaranteed Income Community of Practice offers fact sheets and briefs with basic background, policy recommendations, and practical information on program design and evaluation
Stanford Basic Income Lab has compiled a number of guaranteed income toolkits and research briefs.
The Jain Family Institute created a white paper series on setting up a guaranteed income program.
Give Directly is running a large scale UBI pilot with a strong evaluation component. Its website includes guaranteed income fundamentals, arguments for and against, and FAQs about how it works.
A brief from the Roosevelt Institute highlights design considerations for guaranteed income policies that advance racial and gender justice.
What We're Reading
The New York Times reports on the expansion of guaranteed income programs, including one recently launched by the city of Los Angeles that is one of the largest in the country.
In These Times discusses a new negative income tax proposal that would function as a form of federal income guarantee.
An article from PBS News Hour provides a good overview of recent guaranteed income pilots.
Yes! Magazine shares promising early findings from two newer guaranteed income pilots in New York City and Atlanta focused on low-income women of color.
Nonprofit Quarterly examines the harmful, racialized narratives about income guarantees that contributed to the defeat of the Child Taxcare Credit extension.
Next City reports on results from the Magnolia Mother's Trust, which was designed by and for Black mothers and is now the longest-running guaranteed income pilot in the country.