California approves $ 35 million plan for first nationally publicly funded guaranteed income program

SACRAMENTO, Calif .– California lawmakers on Thursday approved the first publicly funded guaranteed income plan in the United States, $ 35 million for monthly cash payments to pregnant people and eligible young adults who have recently left home host without any restrictions on how they spend it.

The votes – 36-0 in the Senate and 64-0 in the Assembly – showed bipartisan support for an idea that is gaining momentum across the country. Dozens of local programs have emerged in recent years, some of which are privately funded, making it easier for elected officials to sell the idea to the public.

California’s plan is taxpayer funded and could inspire other states to follow suit.

“If you look at the statistics of our young people in foster care, they are devastating,” said Senate Republican Leader Scott Wilk. “We should do everything we can to raise these young people.”

Local governments and organizations will ask for the money and run their programs. The state Department of Social Services will decide who will receive the funding. California lawmakers have left it up to local authorities to determine the amount of monthly payments, which typically range from $ 500 to $ 1,000 in existing programs across the country.

The vote came on the same day that millions of parents began receiving their first monthly payments as part of a temporary extension of the federal child tax credit that many see as a form of guaranteed income.

“Now there is momentum, things are moving fast,” said Michael Tubbs, adviser to Governor Gavin Newsom, who pioneered when he instituted a guaranteed income program as mayor of Stockton. “The next stop is the federal government.”

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For decades, most government aid programs have had strict rules about how money could be spent, typically limiting benefits to things like food or shelter. But a guaranteed income program gives people money with no rules on how to spend it. The idea is to reduce the stress of poverty which causes health problems and makes it harder for people to find and keep jobs.

“It changes the philosophy of ‘the big brothers government knows what’s best for you’,” said State Senator Dave Cortese, a Democrat from San José. “We’ve been very prescriptive with this population as a state and as counties go. Look at the failure. Half of them don’t graduate from high school, let alone grow like other people their age. “

But critics – like Jon Coupal, president of the California-based Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association – say guaranteed income programs are “a transfer of wealth from productive individuals to those who can choose not to be productive.” He said a more appropriate use of taxpayer dollars would be scholarships or something that encourages education.

“It’s less offensive if it is aimed at people who really need it,” he said.

Guaranteed income programs date back to the 18th century. The US government even experimented with them in the 1960s and 1970s under the Nixon administration before they fell out of favor.

But recently, guaranteed income programs have made a comeback. Programs have been announced in New Orleans; Oakland, California; Tacoma, Washington; Gainesville, Florida; and Los Angeles – the second largest city in the country with a plan that will give 2,000 families in need $ 1,000 a month.

The state wants to target the money on programs that benefit pregnant women and young adults outside the foster care system to help them make the transition to life on their own. The latter includes people like Naihla De Jesus, who was taken out of her mother’s care at 17 and switched between living with an aunt, godmother and boyfriend until landing in a transitional housing program.

She became ineligible for this program when she turned 24 last year, which would normally have ended her government support as a foster child. Instead, Santa Clara County taxpayers paid her $ 1,000 a month with no restrictions on how she can spend it, as part of a guaranteed income program targeting former kids in family’s. Home.

De Jesus also cares for his 9 year old brother as a temporary guardian while battling anxiety and depression. She said her condition made it difficult for her to keep a job because some days she didn’t have enough energy to get out of bed and didn’t go to work.

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Now she has a full time job as a Customer Support Specialist at the Bill Wilson Center, where she works with young people who find themselves in situations like hers. She says she doesn’t care about money like she used to, choosing to save most of what she gets from the guaranteed income program. She used some of it to buy things for her brother, whose interest in expensive electronics grows as he ages.

And she used the money to save for a down payment for her “dream car,” a blue Subaru WRX.

“I am proud of myself, where I am from,” she said. “I don’t have to stress and then isolate myself and think too much, ‘Oh, I’m not going to have enough money to pay my rent or my phone bill. “

The Santa Clara County program has cost the county $ 1.4 million so far. Participants receive the money on a debit card, which they can use for purchases or to withdraw money from an ATM. County officials are asking them to fill out surveys to monitor their performance, but they haven’t done a thorough analysis, said Melanie Jimenez Perez, who oversees the program.