Guaranteed income is the ‘solution to poverty’ we need across America 

Recent pilot programs for guaranteed income, or direct and recurring cash payments, are improving the daily lives of hard-working Americans across the nation. 

Lucile O’Quinn in Saint Paul, Minn., used her $500 in monthly funds to pay for gas to get to a job an hour away and to pay people to watch her children before their daycare opened at 6 AM. Without the small amount of funding from that guaranteed income program, called the People’s Prosperity Pilot, she would have been stuck, unable to find a job in her town or travel to another one further away, unable to feed her kids, and unable to pay others to care for them while she works. 

The city of Saint Paul launched the People’s Prosperity Pilot at the apex of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, offering $500 per month to 150 low-income families with newborn children. Thanks to recent data, we know just how successful it was. 

Among the program’s participants, the number of people employed increased from 49 percent at the beginning of the pilot to 63 percent six months after the program ended. Seven percent of households were able to move to better-quality homes. Participating families maintained or improved their financial stability, allowing them to save money and smooth income volatility. Recipients reported decreased anxiety and depression, favorable levels of health, and increased feelings of hope. Other programs across the country have shown that guaranteed income programs deliver similar results in small towns and big cities alike. 

Lucile’s story, along with countless others, inspires hope. Hope for a future where people can find better jobs, move into safer housing, and spend more time with their children. Hope for communities that need a little help — just a little help — to flourish and prosper. Hope for a country that recognizes poverty is bad for the soul and bad for the nation.  

So why are some Republican lawmakers working to block and ban programs that deliver significant benefits to hard-working Americans, especially when guaranteed income programs are supported by voters on both sides of the aisle?  

In a new poll, nearly two-thirds of American voters — Democrats, Republicans and independents — said that they support a guaranteed income. Voters surveyed supported programs that would directly give $500-$1,000 to individuals every month with no onerous requirements or strings attached. They understood the payments would be used by those who needed it to make necessary purchases and would empower people experiencing poverty to transform their lives.  

These findings should be a political earthquake and mark the beginning of a policy transformation where leaders at every level of government work together to ensure every family across the country can thrive. But even with overwhelming bipartisan support from everyday Americans, there is a growing movement from Republican state lawmakers to thwart these anti-poverty measures. 

In Harris County, Texas, the poverty rate is among the highest in the country, and Texas is in the top 10 poorest states. Harris County’s Uplift Harris guaranteed income pilot will provide targeted low-income households $500 every month for 18 months starting this spring and has received over 90,000 applications. Despite the need and demand, some Republican state leaders are trying to block the effort with cynical legal maneuvers instead of working with local leaders to build a truly prosperous, thriving state where everyone can care for their family and build a better life. 

Guaranteed income is a critical solution to the poverty that grips too many of our communities — especially Black and Brown communities. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called it “the solution to poverty” in 1967. Yet for decades — for generations — this policy had not received the attention or action it deserved, while failed policies and half-measures caused racial wealth gaps to widen, poverty rates to fester, and the economic mobility of Black families to languish.  

Absent meaningful action, families struggled to get by without a way to get ahead and were left without options to break free from an entrenched cycle of poverty. 

To begin to break this cycle, the nation’s first city-led guaranteed income program began in Stockton, Calif., in 2019. In the years since, the nationwide effort called Mayors for a Guaranteed Income has grown to 150 mayors, Counties for a Guaranteed Income has doubled in size after one year, and dozens of pilots delivering more than $250 million in guaranteed income to Americans nationwide have been introduced.  

Guaranteed income programs are an investment in the power and potential of our people and the strength of our communities. They are an investment in what Dr. King called the bank of justice and a deposit in America’s great vaults of opportunity.  

We’re not naïve. We know that establishing a nationwide guaranteed income will require extraordinary action and courage from public servants at a time when we have come to expect little of either. We’ve seen worthy and effective programs like this one shunted aside by politicians who view its ambitions as too great and its results as too disruptive. But we know that now is the time for action. 

Michael Tubbs is the former mayor of Stockton, Calif., creating a first-of-its-kind guaranteed income pilot (SEED) in 2019. Currently he is serving as Special Advisor for Economic Mobility and Opportunity to California Gov. Gavin Newsom. 

Rodney Ellis represents Harris County, Texas, and has been a member of the Texas Senate since 2017.