by Peter Knight | Oct 28, 2022 | News
In September, 2022, the Economic Security Project (ESP) announced that it had hit a milestone of 100 guaranteed income pilots announced nationwide. See a two-minute video celebrating this achievement here.
In 2017, ESP helped launch pilots in Stockton, CA and Jackson, MS and then open-sourced the playbook and invited others to join the movement. To go from a distant dream to such a large number of pilots did not happen overnight, it took the dedicated work of people committed to this vision.
ESP “advocates for ideas that build economic power for all Americans. We legitimize bold ideas by supporting cutting edge research and elevating champions, win concrete policy victories for the communities that need to see change now, and provoke the conventional wisdom to shift what’s considered possible. Our team of academics, organizers, practitioners and culture makers disburse grants, run issue campaigns, develop creative interventions and research products, and convene to encourage investment and action from others.”
by Peter Knight | Oct 9, 2022 | Events, News
The 2022 Guaranteed Income Now summit was an opportunity to mark the movement’s recent progress — there are now officially 100 mayors who have joined Mayors for a Guaranteed Income and 100 pilots announced in the United States.
The 2-day summit in Atlanta brought together pilots, policymakers, researchers and more. This event was about getting inspired and recognizing the work that the US Income Movement community has been doing, Check out the clip below featuring Mayor Melvin Carter, the mayor of St. Paul, Minnesota.
On the pilot side, an exciting new tool debuted during the summit: Stanford Basic Income Lab’s Guaranteed Income Pilots Dashboard. This dashboard was designed to visualize data from 30+ guaranteed income pilots across the United States. It also includes testimonies from participants, which shed light on ways in which unconditional cash is giving people the freedom to build financial security and change their own lives for the better. Explore the dashboard here.
by Guest Contributor | Oct 8, 2022 | Research
My name is Jonathan Berg. I have been working as a medical anthropologist doing research with people living in poverty and marginalization since 2012. I currently work at the Erasmus University. In the past few years I have been involved as a researcher with an experiment in the Netherlands which I think might be of interest to BIEN website visitors.
For a period of three years, a group of 14 people under forensic psychiatric care (meaning having a criminal history and a severe mental affliction), received an almost rule-free extra income to find out if taking away their financial stress (scarcity theory) would reduce the amount of public nuisance they caused and crimes committed. All they had to do to keep receiving the money was: 1) not be incarcerated, 2) have an address in the city where the experiment took place, and 3) talk to researchers every 6 months.
We did a longitudinal qualitative study using the case history method to carefully map all developments and thus were able to study and describe the lives of the participants and observe changes in their behavior. When we first met the participants, many of them were living in in cycles of: poverty, debts, violent or criminal behavior, psychiatric troubles, and drug use. With little to no perspective of any improvement, many lacked the ability to see a future for themselves and some saw only death as a way out of their misery.
Since these participants often had a history of substance abuse, there were worries that they would spend the income of alcohol and drugs. However, a negligible amount the money actually was thus spent. Instead, they spent it making their houses more livable, and on food, self care, medical costs, transportation, and social activities. For most of the participants the money meant a world of change and we noted an overall improvement in their mental wellbeing and a decrease in the risk of recidivism.
We saw three ways in which the steady extra income helped reduce violent or otherwise criminal behavior. Firstly, the extra money provided income security. This made them less dependent on undeclared work and crime to make ends meet. Secondly, they had less financial stress, so they could control their impulses better and were better able to cope with setbacks that would have otherwise triggered, for example, violent behavior. Thirdly, they cherished the improved quality of life due to the extra income, and did not want to risk loosing it. Therefore, they were more thoughtful about any behaviors that might come with the risk of incarceration, since that would (temporarily) stop the monthly payment.
Unsurprisingly, during the experiment the participants did not turn into model citizens and we observed many other influences inhibiting them from living in the ways that they wanted. But, as one of the participants said: “Money is not everything, but everything is money”. It seems that for people living in extremely marginalized situations, like forensic psychiatric clients, a guaranteed minimum income could help shape preconditions needed to escape their chains of poverty, psychological afflictions, stress, and criminal or aggressive behavior.
Our research report, including all the inspiring and sometimes confrontational stories of the participants, is currently only available in Dutch. We will work on publishing it in an international academic journal at a later stage, but that will take some time.
The initiative for this experiment was taken by Irene Veldhuis and Wouter Boekweit, who at the time both worked in forensic psychiatric care. The Research was done by Jonathan Berg and Dorien Mul.
Jonathan Berg
PhD candidate
Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management
Mobile: +31 634402726
Email: berg@eshpm.eur.nl
by Peter Knight | Sep 24, 2022 | News
The Stanford Basic Income Lab, National League of Cities and Guaranteed Income Community of Practice have just released Basic Income and Local Government; A Guide to Municipal Pilots.
This guide consolidates learning and spotlights principles, insights, and emerging practices to guide municipal leaders and public-private partnerships interested in designing basic income programs that are ethical, equitable, rigorous, informative, and consequential for local, state and national policymaking.
by Peter Knight | Sep 21, 2022 | News
At a press conference on September 14th, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle publicly announced the landmark Cook County Promise Guaranteed Income Pilot. This is the largest publicly funded guaranteed income program in the US. The County will provide $500 monthly unrestricted cash payments to 3,250 households for two years, beginning in December 2022. The application window will be open October 6th – October 21st and recipients will be selected by lottery.
More than one-third of all Cook County households are eligible to apply. Applicants must be at least 18 years of age, a resident of Cook County, and meet income eligibility requirements. Households that are already receiving a guaranteed income from another pilot (such as Chicago’s Resilient Communities Pilot or Evanston’s Guaranteed Income Program) are not eligible to apply.
Read the details here
