Ingrid Sullivan, 48, used money from San Antonio’s Guaranteed Basic Income program to rent a house where her grandchildren can play in the yard. And Monique Gonzalez, 41, moved with her family from a San Antonio motel.
Denver resident Jarun Laws, 51, used his basic income to pay rent and buy food.
“I was always a few hundred dollars short in life,” Sullivan told Business Insider. “For the first time, I can breathe.”
Guaranteed basic income has become an increasingly popular strategy to combat poverty in American cities. More than 50 municipalities have tried the GBI model since 2019, offering low-income participants between $100 and $1,000 per month, with no strings attached, for a specified period of time.
What differentiates basic income from traditional social services is the element of choice. Participants told BI they spent money where they needed it most: on housing, groceries, transportation, and paying off debt.
Typically, participants fall below the federal poverty line. However, some programs have also focused on specific populations such as new and pregnant mothers, households with children, or homeless people.
Basic income pilots have been conducted in cities and counties in Arizona, Alabama, Virginia, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Mississippi, Louisiana, Indiana, Florida , North Carolina, South Carolina, Washington and Washington DC.
GBI continues to face legislative opposition from Republican lawmakers who have called the programs “socialist” and fear they will discourage low-income people from entering the workforce.
For example, Iowa banned the GBI in April and the Arizona House of Representatives voted to ban basic income in February. And on April 23, the Texas Supreme Court temporarily blocked a program in the Houston area that the attorney general called “unconstitutional.”
Despite these policy challenges, basic income programs remain active across the country. Here is a list of states, listed alphabetically, in which cash payments are currently offered to low-income residents.
businessinsider
