Marty Levine
August 11, 2024
I have been writing about the need for a stronger social safety net for years.
And I’ve been constantly amazed that knowledge never seems to overcome fear and bias.
Last week my daily barrage of incoming emails gave me another piece of information that I fear will again be ignored. A new study was published by a reputable source telling us that even a modest level of guaranteed income can have widespread positive results for our neighbors who are struggling.
In a nation where so many households struggle to pay for the basic necessities of life, I have been troubled about why this is still tolerated in a country that describes itself often as the most prosperous nation in the world. I have been troubled by our political leaders who continue to proclaim that we all can live the American Dream and that success is theirs for the taking. These are the voices that tell all who will listen that all that stands between financial security and deprivation is hard work, even when so many who work more than one full-time job still count themselves among those struggling to meet their basic life needs. I have been troubled by the growing gap between the few who are very wealthy, the “1%”, and the rest of us.
Guaranteeing everyone a liveable Income is not a new concept. It grows from the same soil that sprouted Social Security from the depths of the Great Depression, a program that was hotly debated but which, when implemented, resulted in a significant decline in the rate of senior poverty.
Social Security has been a vital part of social safety nets across the developed world. But, in our country, it remains controversial and has fierce opposition. Opponents argue that you should have only what you earn. They argue that giving people money makes them less likely to work and builds a culture of dependence which weakens the nation’s moral fiber. Opponents deny that poverty has roots in our nation’s racist history and they deny that it is a structural problem. For them, it does not need a systemic response.
Center for Guaranteed Income Research(CGIR) at Penn’s School of Social Policy & Practice (SP2), in partnership with The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Fielding School of Public Health. just released their findings on the impact of one of the largest trials of the impact of BGI and its findings are important.
The study was large, 8,194 participants (3,202 randomized into the treatment group and 4,992 randomized into the control group). Every participant At the start of the project “most of the treatment and control group members were living in either poverty or deep poverty in one of the most expensive housing markets in the country.” Each member of the treatment group received $1,000 for 12 months with no strings on how it could be used.
The researchers found some very powerful outcomes
» Financial Well-Being: The treatment group demonstrated a significantly increased ability to cover a $400 emergency compared to the control group 6 months into BIG:LEAP (the name of their project)
» Food Security: The treatment group demonstrated a significant decrease in food insecurity and an increase in health-promoting behaviors. After 6 months, nearly 57% of the control group reported an inability to eat preferred foods, compared to about 43% of the treatment group.
» Safety and Decision-Making: The treatment group reported reduced severity and frequency of IPV over the duration of BIG:LEAP. Narrative data captured how recipients used GI to prevent and exit IPV (intimate partner violence) and homelessness. Recipients moved from establishing immediate safety in the first six months, to establishing proximate safety in months 6-9 and then establishing future safety…demonstrating active planning throughout the full course of the tight 12-month time frame.
» Parenting: Treatment group parents were significantly more likely than control group parents to maintain their children’s extracurricular activities like sports and after-school lessons across the duration of the pilot.
» Community: Treatment group members were significantly more likely to report reduced fear of neighborhood violence and more positive interactions with neighbors across the duration of the pilot.
» Employment: GI (guaranteed income)recipients were significantly more likely to secure full-time employment than to remain unemployed not looking for work, compared to control participants across the duration of the pilot.
The report concludes with a wider lens, looking at what the result in Los Angeles alongside those from other experiments with GI have been able to teach us.
As the country, led by individual municipalities and innovative state leaders, moves toward shoring up the porous social safety net, GI appears to be an effective strategy to promote overall health and well-being. And, as poverty is a key driver of healthcare, safety, and educational costs, appropriations for unconditional cash programs like BIG:LEAP may represent a positive return on investment…While the results of this study, like any other, face limited generalizability across contexts and populations, the findings suggest other programs could be a critical and commonsense investment to support families and communities.
The positive impact of a modest level of unencumbered cash is modest but positive.
Study after study has given similar results and yet these programs remain stuck in limbo. They continue to be experiments and trials, not key features of a broad-based approach to combating poverty and wealth inequality. Writing about the positive impact of Guaranteed Income programs over two years ago in the Washington Post, Megan Greenwell observed “If empirical evidence ruled the world, guaranteed income would be available to every poor person in America, and many would no longer be poor. But empirical evidence does not rule the world.”
I know that the intricacies of turning this concept into a workable policy and a method for paying for its cost remain to be resolved. But we also know that lives are improved in ways that our existing patchwork of public programs and private charities have not done. It is time for us to stop the false moralizing about each person getting what they deserve and working harder will solve all problems and figure out a national, guaranteed income program.
Let’s get to it.
