by Peter Knight | Jan 20, 2024 | News
The Urban Institute just published its 12-month findings for the Austin Guaranteed Income Pilot, plus a policy recommendations memo for the Austin City Council, which is seeking to understand how direct cash can assist in addressing the city’s housing affordability and homelessness crisis. The memo was produced in collaboration with the Jain Family Institute. See the top three publications on the Urban Institute’s project page for the Austin evaluation.
by Peter Knight | Dec 21, 2023 | News
A new report on a recently concluded statewide guaranteed income pilot program with immigrant families shows how unrestricted cash assistance programs allowed low-wage earners to pursue better jobs, increase their educational levels, and improve other critical outcomes for their children.
“The NM Economic Relief Working Group’s 18-month guaranteed income (GI) pilot selected 330 mixed-immigration status households to receive unconditional direct cash transfers of $500 monthly for 12 months from February 2022 to February 2023. One-third of households sampled came from rural communities and two-thirds from urban communities. An additional extension was granted to 50 randomly-selected mixed-status households to receive $500 monthly for an additional 6 months (February 2023-August 2023).
Immigrant families were chosen for the pilot because polling showed these families struggled significantly more than the general population during the pandemic because of numerous exclusions from the country’s safety net; these exclusions were due to lack of a social security number even if the household had U.S.-citizen children. In addition, many immigrant parents are not eligible for public safety-net programs, such as unemployment insurance, even though many are essential workers, make substantial tax contributions, and have positive economic impacts on our communities, state, and nation.
After receiving guaranteed income checks for a year:
• Rural participants reporting increases in employment: 14% increase
• Urban participants reporting having unstable work schedules: 36% decrease
• Rural participants reporting having unstable work schedules: 17% decrease
• Participants reporting, they had trouble paying the rent or mortgage on time: 35% decrease
• Participants reporting having to reduce or forego expenses for basic household necessities, such as medicine or food, in order to pay the rent or mortgage: 9% decrease
• Urban participants reporting having to reduce or forego expenses for basic household necessities, such as medicine or food, in order to pay the rent or mortgage: 18% decrease
Also, as part of its advocacy, the ERWG obtained a state rule change so that receiving regular GI payments do not count as income and thus do not negatively impact recipients’ SNAP or TANF allotments. ERWG’s longer term goal is to get the State of New Mexico to provide economic supports to participants in workforce development projects, specifically childcare, home health care and the oil & gas industries.
The report, “Guaranteed Income: Increasing Employment and Helping Families Thrive,” on the New Mexico Guaranteed Income Pilot Program for Immigrant Families, was released on December 12, 2023.”
Here is a link to the report and the fact sheet.
by Peter Knight | Dec 6, 2023 | News
Ireland’s Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Catherine Martin TD, has today welcomed the publication of the first reports compiled from data collected as part of the Basic Income for the Arts (BIA) pilot scheme.
Read more here.
The first Impact Assessment (6-month) of the Basic Income Pilot Scheme is also published today and is available here.
by Peter Knight | Dec 4, 2023 | News
The University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Guaranteed Income Research has released its final report on the first county to experiment with GI during the pandemic. This report is also the first in a series entitled, “The American Guaranteed Income Studies.” The Center will be releasing will be releasing full mixed-methods findings across a range of sites in the coming months under this series.
To read the Ulster County, NY report click here.
by Peter Knight | Aug 28, 2023 | News
In August 2020 the Dutch NGO INclusion started a basic income pilot in the village Welle in Nebbi District in Uganda, together with Ugandan partner AFARD. All 350+ people of the village, adults as well as children, have received a basic income amounting to the equivalent of 15 euros, currently 60.000 Ugandan shilling, for the past three years. Now, the first major study by researchers of the University of Groningen of the project shows very positive results.
The midline evaluation report analyses the results 2,5 years into the project, comparing the situation during the baseline study before the start of the project, and the latest measurement in December 2022. The report is written by PhD Elisa van Dongen under the supervision of Professor Dr. Robert Lensink and Associate Professor Annika Mueller.
This basic income pilot of INclusion has some unique features. To begin with the intended duration of seven years. Most basic income experiments and projects only run for one or two years. Secondly, children receive the same basic income as adults, whereas usually children are excluded or receive less. Because of this, the amount a family receives is relatively large, amounting to 80% of the international poverty line. Thirdly, 10% of the basic income is not given to people individually but to the village as a whole. Because a generally accepted characteristic of basic income is that it is individual, these 10% do not count as basic income. But it is unconditional, and the village fund enables the community to invest in public facilities that benefit everyone.
The study took a broad look at the project results. Some of the findings:
- extreme poverty diminished from 55 to 10 percent
- food security improved considerably
- much better access to clean drinking due to a water well that was the first investment from the village fund
- the percentage of children going to primary school increased from 70 to 87 percent
- the number of days missed at school or work due to illness decreased by 75 percent
- 60 percent of the families built a new, better house
- the basic income was also used to buy and hire more land for farming
- the percentage of households owning cattle increased from 9 to 49 percent
- ownership of solar panels rose from 19 to 74 percent
Not surprisingly, the study also found that the residents of Welle experience much less stress than before and are more optimistic about their future.
Not included in the report but also an important outcome of the project is the fact that before the project started many people in Welle earned a small income by producing charcoal. This has ceased altogether. Although this might count as a negative result just looking at economic figures – a decrease in economic activity – in reality it is very positive. Not just because it was hard and ill paid work, but also because a lot of trees were cut for the charcoal production. Since the start of the project the number of trees around the village, and greenery and biodiversity in general, has improved visibly.
A more detailed discussion of the report on the website of INclusion: Scientific research: many positive results after the first 2.5 years of the basic income project in Uganda.
The full report: LIFE-Basic Income Project in Welle, Uganda – Midline Evaluation Report.
