Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf announced a “guaranteed income pilot” for black and indigenous families in her California city.
The $500 payments will be sent monthly to 600 low-income families of color for 1.5 years with “no strings” attached on how the money should be spent, Schaaf announced on Tuesday. The goal of the move is to “change the narrative,” the Democrat added.
“Poverty is not a personal failure, it’s a policy failure,” the mayor tweeted.
She also tweeted: “Our goal is to add to the body of evidence that unrestricted cash to our lowest-income residents — and particularly those who’ve suffered from historical racial inequity — can improve outcomes + change systems.”
Poverty is not a personal failure, it’s a policy failure. Today in Oakland we launched a guaranteed income pilot for 600 low-income BIPOC families to receive $500 a month for 18 months, no strings. We want to change the narrative. pic.twitter.com/78fDjUj4G1
— Libby Schaaf (@LibbySchaaf) March 23, 2021
Checks will begin to reach the hands of her constituents in the spring or summer, and one of the aims of the decision is to “advance strategies to eliminate racial disparities in economic stability, mobility, and assets through a guaranteed income,” according to the program, which is named Oakland Resilient Families.
ILLINOIS CITY BECOMES FIRST IN US TO PASS REPARATIONS PROGRAM FOR BLACK RESIDENTS
Schaaf cited “results” from a similar idea in Stockton, California, where in early March the city gave $500 monthly payments to randomly selected residents over the course of two years. The program, dubbed the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (SEED), claims to have results showing how it “drastically improve[d] job prospects, financial stability and overall well being of recipients.” It is unclear if the participants were selected on the basis of race.
“The last year has shown us that far too many people were living on the financial edge and were pushed over it by COVID-19,” said Michael Tubbs, the former Stockton mayor and founder of Mayors for a Guaranteed Income. “SEED gave people the dignity to make their own choices, the ability to live up to their potential, and improved economic stability going into the turmoil of the pandemic.”
This week, the City Council of Evanston, Illinois, became the first in the nation to approve a reparations program for black residents, funded by cannabis taxes.
The first part of the plan, approved by an 8-1 vote on Monday, will make $400,000 available in $25,000 homeownership and improvement grants to black residents who can show they have directly descended from someone who lived in the city between 1919 and 1969. The City Council, which voted in 2019 to create the Reparations Fund, already apportioned $10 million for creating programs to combat supposed structural racism caused by past discriminatory policies.
Conservative groups have spoken out against a universal income, claiming that the idea is riddled with issues.
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“Those calling for a government-funded universal basic income are acting as though it’s a hot new idea. It’s not. It’s been tried before — and it didn’t work,” Vijay Menon, who was a research assistant for the conservative Heritage Foundation, wrote in 2018.
“But the most apparent flaw with the concept is that it fails to require work or work preparation for its recipients,” he continued. “Although the current welfare system does little to encourage self-support, a comprehensive universal basic income policy would remove the idea of personal responsibility entirely.”
Schaaf’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Washington Examiner.
