Guaranteed Income

On this 60th anniversary of America's declaration of unconditional war on poverty, we must bet on ourselves and finally eradicate poverty through a guaranteed income.

The University of Pennsylvania study found the extra money to low-income St. Paul families improved positive outlooks as well as cash flow. 

Governments have spent untold billions providing poor people with access to food, shelter and education, says St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter. He believes that offering cash is a better way to change the circumstances of poor people. "All the things that we correlate with poverty in America, we can address by making sure that Americans have money in their pocket," Carter says.

The University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Guaranteed Income Research has completed a 59-page report on its findings, coming to the conclusion that St. Paul’s “People’s Prosperity Guaranteed Income Pilot” worked “protectively,” offering some financial breathing room during the pandemic, though that disappeared after the cash ended.

A new study suggests St. Paul’s first guaranteed income program delivered economic, physical and mental health benefits to its participants.

The Minnesota premiere of “It’s Basic,” a documentary by Marc Levin that chronicled the guaranteed income movement and its impact on communities across the country, was held at The Wellstone Center on Wednesday, July 19, and hosted by St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter. Dozens of community members packed into the theater to participate in the screening of the documentary and hear from those championing the guaranteed income movement. 

St. Paul is expanding its guaranteed basic income experiment, giving monthly checks to more families while also making deposits into some of their children’s college savings accounts.

In November 2020, Mayor Melvin Carter launched the St. Paul pilot, which is giving 150 families $500 a month for 18 months. Since then, dozens of cities have rolled out similar programs in hopes of making the case for a federal guaranteed income policy.

They were 150 young families already on fragile financial footing when COVID-19 inflicted even more pain. All welcomed newborns to their families in 2020. They all suffered direct economic fallout from the pandemic, including furloughs, lost jobs and lost child care. More than 80% of families identify as people of color and nearly half live on the city's East Side.

In 1967, against a backdrop of massive civil unrest, Dr. Martin Luther King wrote Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? and called for the immediate abolition of poverty. King’s economic dream was the most direct – a guaranteed income for all Americans. This week, more than 50 years later and against a similar backdrop of racial and economic unrest, we mayors are bringing that dream to life.

Spurred by the coronavirus pandemic, dozens of U.S. cities are deploying a new tool in their war on poverty: cash. At least 16 cities and counties are handing out no-strings-attached payments to some low-income residents, a Reuters tally found. At least 31 other local governments plan to do so in the months ahead.

Malissa and her fiance, Jason, take on part-time jobs whenever they can. But between their disabilities and hesitance about workplace exposure to COVID-19, they've been homebound with their two children for most of the past two years. The possibilities opened up for their family when Malissa was chosen for a guaranteed-income pilot program in her hometown of St. Paul, Minnesota.

One St. Paul family used the extra income to buy a child's winter coat and for rent, groceries and other necessities. A single mother of three said the $500 per month "lifted a big weight" from her budget after she was laid off from her job in the early months of the pandemic.

Both Minneapolis and St. Paul recently launched guaranteed income pilot programs that provide monthly payments to low-income families. Programs like these are gaining traction around the nation. MPR News host Angela Davis talks with two experts about basic income programs and what they hope to learn from pilot programs like the ones in the Twin Cities.

In 2020, St. Paul, Minnesota, launched a guaranteed basic income pilot project, providing $500 to 150 families for up to 18 months. As part of this first experiment, all participating families are enrolled in CollegeBound St. Paul, a citywide savings account initiative. The program, which went into effect in fall 2020 and is starting to come to a close, has become the latest example of how providing people with a guaranteed income can give communities a boost and impact their work and personal lives.