Guaranteed income experiments trialed in LA and Chicago could be set to spread across the country as county officials meet in Washington.
County leaders throughout the US will meet to announce a network of county-level basic income programs this week, the New York Times reported.
In December, Cook County, which contains Chicago, launched an unprecedented guaranteed income scheme which saw 3,200 residents receive $500 a month with no strings attached. Last year LA County similarly deployed a pilot program that picked 1,000 people to receive $1,000 monthly payments.
Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and Los Angeles County Supervisor Holly Mitchell, who both oversaw the launch of guaranteed income pilot programs in their own counties, will now serve as co-chairs of Counties for a Guaranteed Income.
It will serve as a sister to Mayors for Guaranteed Income, a network founded in June 2020 which has more than 100 mayors among its members.
Such initiatives have highlighted a rift between Republicans and Democrats – the former label them a waste of money and the latter believe they will emancipate the weakest members of society.
Cook County launched an unprecedented guaranteed income scheme under the supervision of Toni Preckwinkle (pictured)
In June 2020 the network Mayors for Guaranteed Income was founded and has more than 100 mayors among its members. This map shows cities where mayors are members of the network
‘There’s no indication that I see that the American public thinks what we really need is more aid to people who choose not to work,’ Robert Rector, a conservative public assistance expert at the Heritage Foundation who helped shape the welfare changes of the 1990s, told the Times.
Similarly, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has seen the issue as an opportunity to attack Republican politics.
‘These are the same people that didn’t want to expand health care, and look at the number of people in their communities, these ruby red communities, that are suffering,’ Lightfoot said.
‘These are the same people, frankly, that are attacking the very core of our democracy, demonizing being different, being the other, based upon your religion, your creed, who you love, your gender identity.’
Programs in both Chicago, the city, and Cook County have been described as ‘the largest of their kind in the nation’ and are part of an effort led by Lightfoot and Preckwinkle to support Illinois‘ poorest residents with basic sustenance.
One of the programs in Chicago got underway in December, when 3,250 residents began receiving $500 monthly checks and would continue doing so for two years. Another commenced in August with the same income, but would last one year.
Around 91,000 Chicagoans applied within a day and 176,000 within three weeks. Applications were open to certain people in Cook County, in which Chicago is incorporated. It is the second most populous county in Illinois and the second most populous county in the US.
Applicants had to be at least 18, residents of Cook County, and have a household income at or below 250 percent of the federal poverty level, Preckwinkle said regarding the $42million Cook County Promise Guaranteed Income Pilot.
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That meant a one-member household would need to earn less than $33,975 a year and a family of four, $69,375. Around 36 percent of households would qualify with such limitations, Preckwinkle said.
Almost 8 in 10 applicants were women, and three in four were Black, Bloomberg reported.
Recipients were given a choice between receiving a pre-paid debit card or bank account direct deposits and are free to use the money however they please.
Chicago has launched an unprecedented guaranteed income scheme that will see 3,200 residents receive $500 a month with no strings attached
The program in Cook County got underway in December, when 3,250 residents began receiving $500 monthly checks and would continue doing so for two years
‘I’m the mayor of the city of Chicago. I know what our people need,’ Lightfoot told the New York Times.
Last August Lightfoot launched a separate city-wide $31.5million Resilient Communities Pilot which selected 5,000 city residents to receive a guaranteed $500 for a year.
Both the Chicago and Cook County schemes were funded by the more than $1billion the county received from the American Rescue Plan Act, signed by President Joe Biden.
‘This was a once-in-a-lifetime moment for us to be bold and innovative,’ Brandie Knazze, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Family and Support Services, told the Times.
Preckwinkle assumed her position as Cook County Board President in 2010 and ran against Lightfoot as a Chicago mayoral candidate in 2019.
She told the Times that both Martin Luther King Jr. and the Black Panthers were inspiration for the programs.
King advocated for guaranteed income, famously saying: ‘I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective – the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income.’
Preckwinkle also said she hopes that guaranteed income could gain traction on a federal level.
‘What’s happened in this country historically is these ideas get tried out at the local level, in cities and counties and states, and when there’s enough momentum, they get adopted by the federal government,’ she said. ‘So that’s what we’re hoping will happen.’
Lightfoot said the future of such schemes beyond the pilot stage would be determined by an analysis of how they perform by the University of Chicago. Its research will be informed by surveys, interviews and economic, labor, criminal, legal and educational data.
