Episode Transcript
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Welcome to Hacks & Wonks.
I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm apolitical consultant and your host.
On this show, we talk with policy wonksand political hacks to gather insight
into local politics and policy inWashington state through the lens of those
doing the work with behind-the-scenesperspectives on what's happening, why it's
happening, and what you can do about it.
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If you like us, the most helpfulthing you can do is leave a review
wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks.
Full transcripts and resourcesreferenced in the show are always
available at officialhacksandwonks.comand in our episode notes.
Today on Hacks & Wonks, we're divinginto a transformative approach to
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addressing poverty and economicinequality that's showing promising
results right here in Washington state.
In late 2021, the City of Tacomaand the United Way of Pierce County
launched Growing Resilience in Tacomaor GRIT - a guaranteed income pilot
program with a stated commitment todismantle poverty, promote economic
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opportunity, and improve and increaseequity in the social safety net.
GRIT was built on four guiding principles.
One, invest in Asset Limited, IncomeConstrained and Employed - also
referred to as ALICE - families whodisproportionately identify as Black,
Indigenous and other people of color andface inequitable financial struggles.
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Number two, cultivate resilience andfinancially empower participants.
Three, promote narrative change byhighlighting the structural failures that
lead to poverty, rather than perpetuatingthe myth of individual shortcomings.
And four, build support forGI - guaranteed income - and other
strength based policies to createa more equitable social safety net.
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The first phase of GRIT provided110 families with $500 in monthly
unconditional cash payments for one year.
The results are in and published in areport by the University of Pennsylvania
Center for Guaranteed Income Research, andthey offer compelling evidence about the
power of guaranteed income to stabilizefamilies, reduce financial volatility,
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and foster hope and resilience.
Building on the success of the pilot.
GRIT entered a second phase in March 2024.
Thanks to a $1.9 million provisosecured in the state budget, GRIT
2.0 expanded to reach 175 families inTacoma and unincorporated Pierce County.
Like the initial program, these familiesreceive $500 monthly payments for
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12 months, enabling further researchon the impact of guaranteed income.
Both phases of GRIT specifically targetedAsset Limited, Income Constrained but
Employed or ALICE families - workingfamilies who often juggle multiple jobs
but still struggle to meet basic needs.
The first phase focused on families infour high-need Tacoma zip codes, where
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40% of households fall into this category,while GRIT 2.0 expanded to include outer
zip codes and unincorporated areas.
The timing couldn't be more critical.
Across the Puget Sound region, familiesface rising housing costs, persistent
inflation, and wages that aren'tkeeping pace with the cost of living.
In Tacoma, where the median householdincome is $11,000 below the state average,
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many working families find themselvesin an impossible situation - earning
too much to qualify for traditionalsafety net programs, but not enough
to achieve financial stability.
GRIT is part of a national movementfor guaranteed income, led by the
Mayors for a Guaranteed Incomecoalition, founded by former
Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs in 2020.
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Starting with 11 founding mayors,including Tacoma's Mayor Victoria
Woodards, the coalition has grownto include over 170 mayors across
29 states - distributing $350million in direct cash assistance.
These programs are rigorouslyevaluated, providing data and
insights to support policy andadvocacy at state and federal levels.
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Joining us today are three leaders at theforefront of this transformative work.
Sukhi Samra, Executive Directorof Mayors for a Guaranteed Income.
Tacoma Mayor Victoria Woodards, afounding mayor of the coalition.
And Dona Ponepinto, Presidentof United Way of Pierce County.
Together, we'll explore the program'sresults, its impact on participants'
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lives, and the broader implicationsfor economic equity and resilience.
This conversation comes at a pivotalmoment as Washington state legislators
consider expanding guaranteed incomeprograms statewide and as communities
grapple with how to create an equitableand resilient economy for all.
The lessons from Tacoma'sleadership are invaluable.
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Let's dive in.
Well, today I am absolutelythrilled to be talking about
the issue of guaranteed income.
Thank you all for joining us today.
Thanks for having us, Crystal.
Absolutely.
Well, I want to start off justintroducing what guaranteed income
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is and what brought the Mayors for aGuaranteed Income coalition together.
Can you share that with us, Sukhi?
Sure thing.
Hi Crystal - thanks for havingus here today - I'm excited
to dig into this conversation.
And to start, a guaranteed incomeis a recurring cash payment that's
given regularly to folks, usually on amonthly basis, and is meant to provide
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a floor upon which folks can build.
In most of our pilots, we've seenit at about $500 to $1,000 a month.
Mayors for a Guaranteed Income launchedin June 2020 with a coalition of 11
founding members, including Tacoma'sown Mayor Woodards, to advocate for
direct cash as a way to build a moreresilient and just country - and a
country in which working-class Americansaren't working two or three jobs to
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still struggle to afford the basics.
Our coalition has three mandates.
The first is to launch pilots like theone in Tacoma and the one that you'll
hear about today to provide data andstories about how guaranteed income works.
The second is to invest in narrativechange work because we know that
to get to a more equitable economy,we'll need to change hearts and
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minds and not just share data.
And the third is to advocate for policychange at the state and federal level.
Since we launched in 2020, ourcoalition has grown from 11 mayors
to about 170 across 29 states.
We also have a county affiliateof which newly-elected Executive
Ryan Mello is a part of.
And altogether, our coalition haslaunched about 70 guaranteed income
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pilots across the country thathave distributed $350 million in
direct relief to everyday Americans.
Now, this kind of relief isdifferent than we're often used
to seeing, here in America andin Washington state and Tacoma.
We're used to very targeted non-cashassistance and interventions where we
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might provide you help with finding a job,we might give you vouchers for a grocery
store, we might give you conditionsthat you have to meet to receive other
assistance, or provide assistance directlyto a landlord in terms of rent subsidies.
This is direct cash.
What brought about this change in focus,and what are the benefits offered or
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reasons behind moving towards just givingpeople direct cash and letting them
decide what they need to spend it on?
Well, I'll start - this is Victoria - juststart by saying, I think this whole
movement got started - I should say onceagain, because this was something that Dr.
Martin Luther Kingtalked about in the 60s.
So this is not a new idea, but Ireally want to give credit where
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credit is due, and that goes to formerMayor Michael Tubbs, who was then
the mayor of Stockton, California.
And this is something thatMichael truly believed in, that
Mayor Tubbs truly believed in.
And so he raised the money anddid a pilot in his own city.
And after seeing the success of whathappened in his own city, he really
dreamed of this being a national program.
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And so he called up some of hisgreat mayor friends - I'm one
of them - and the other 10 whodecided to be founding mayors.
So I just, I want to be superclear that it was his vision that
got us to where we are today.
What is different - as Crystal, you did agreat job of outlining - is that this is
cash available, and I'll say that in eachcommunity, in each pilot, there really
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is a different set of qualifications orcharacteristics of the type of people
that each community wants to help.
So if you take Tacoma for instance,we wanted to focus on a group that
the United Way of Pierce County andUnited Ways across the country call
ALICE, which means Asset Limited,Income Constrained, and Employed.
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And what that means is that theseare people who get up every single
day - working one, two, sometimes threejobs trying to support their families,
but they're just not making enoughto lift themselves out of poverty.
And so we focused on that group here inTacoma, but we also focused on four zip
codes in Tacoma where we know we havethe highest population of ALICE families.
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And in the four zip codes that we chose- in each one of those zip codes - 40% of
those households identified as ALICE.
And we targeted single head of householdsor one-income head of households
with children, because each of theseinitiatives actually being a pilot
program in each city - different citiesdid different things just to more
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completely understand who could benefitthe most and how people benefit from it.
And so we chose that group andended up with 110 families that
we focused on here in Tacoma.
And so I think the success of it thatwe'll get into really came out of the
fact that it is a cash payment thatis not tied to anything you have to do
or should do, but that you as an adulttaking care of your family can decide
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how to invest that money and how touse that money to support your family.
Absolutely.
And it's so interesting because we hearthat case made so often in different
contexts - whether it's cities advocatingfor their own budgets, corporations
advocating for their autonomy andability to conduct their own business
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in the way that they understand.
I think there's a lot of understandingthat while people may be in generally
similar situations facing poverty, therecould be a lot of different reasons for
that, a lot of different circumstances.
And so one-size-fits-alltype of interventions may
not be the most appropriate.
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Dona, as you found your way into thiscoalition, into these projects, what
did you see as the driving factorsfor moving forward with these pilots
and the benefits that you saw itcould present within the community?
Well, for our United Way, we havebeen on this journey of poverty
reduction and how do you help ALICEfamilies in our community move from a
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place of crisis to self-sufficiency?
So when the mayor reached out andasked if we were interested - I think
before she was even done, I had saidyes to doing this because we believe
that these families need to havesome type of additional support so
that they don't fall off a cliff.
ALICE families are alwaysteetering on the edge.
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They're 100% above the federal povertylevel, but 200% below poverty level.
So they're in that in-betweenarea where they're just - like
the mayor said - they're just notmaking enough to make ends meet.
And so, what attracted me and ourUnited Way to this - my board was all
in - is that this is a supplement.
It's not meant to replacesomeone getting up and working.
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In fact, most ALICE householdsare getting up every day and
working more than one job.
And in some instances, this additional$500 a month that they received made
them maybe cut back on one of those twoor three jobs that they already have.
But knowing that this is not a replacementfor work - that it's a supplement,
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that it is creating this financialfloor for families and giving them
that opportunity to actually achievewhatever their hopes and dreams are.
We're all about investing - our UnitedWay - in programs and initiatives
that focus on wealth building.
And so many of these families arereally working hard to do that, but what
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happens in many instances is that they'remeeting a cliff - a benefits cliff.
So many ALICE families may be on foodassistance, they may be getting childcare
subsidies - but if they make $1 more,they're going to lose that childcare.
They make $1 more, their foodassistance benefits are going to be cut.
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So we're also in this lane ofadvocating - as Sukhi talked about,
this really is about how do we gatherenough research and data, which I
think for all of us, we believe thatthere's plenty already out there.
But we continue to do the researchto really be able to show how these
programs are helpful to families.
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And actually, it's an economic imperativeas far as I'm concerned - $6,000 a year
is going right back into our economy.
So that's why United Way said - Yes,we need to do this and we need to look
at how we can make it happen, not onlyin Pierce County, but the state and
add to what's happening nationally.
Absolutely.
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Now, before we dive into thespecifics of this pilot program in
Tacoma - Sukhi, I just want to talkabout this shift in focus a little bit.
A lot of times when we explore poverty- in just kind of layman conversations
- poverty is often presented as a resultof bad decisions, a moral failure, if
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people just understood more and knewmore and could make better decisions.
But there's a large and ever-growingbody of research and data that
actually seems to suggest thatpoverty is a financial problem.
It's simply, at its root, a lack of funds.
That isn't because someoneisn't intelligent, isn't
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industrious or hardworking, isjust fine morally and ethically.
But for a variety of reasons that moreand more people are facing, it is just
hard to earn enough to make ends meet.
Is that what this is kind of basedon and looking at - Hey, this is
really a root of people just nothaving enough money, so what happens
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if we help that specific problem?
Yeah, Crystal, exactly as you said- we believe that poverty is a lack
of cash, not a lack of character.
That it's a systemicfailure, not a personal one.
We know in this country thatincome inequality is rising, wealth
inequality is rising, wages havestagnated while at the same time
corporate profits have increased.
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And we saw that anxiety at the election acouple weeks ago - we know that folks are
really feeling the pressures of inflation.
We know they're feeling the pressures ofrising costs of everything - from eggs
to rent to everything - and so reallywanting to position guaranteed income
as a solution that helps ease some ofthat burden that folks are feeling.
Because as you said, poverty is not apersonal failure - it's a policy failure.
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So Mayor Woodards, as you look todesign and deploy this in Tacoma,
what were your considerations?
What were questions that you facedfrom partners in the community?
And how did you goabout implementing this?
So I explained just a littlebit earlier what we used as our
guidelines of who we wanted to help.
But I will tell you that, of course,we received pushback - and I think
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Dona can share a little bit about somepushback that United Way received as the
administrating partner of the project.
But a lot of the pushback or thethings I heard is - Well, if you give
people $500 a month, they're goingto use it to take lavish vacations or
eat at lavish restaurants, or they'regoing to use it to buy big screen TVs.
And just this idea that people wholive in poverty make poor choices
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- again, kind of getting back to whatSukhi said and what you shared, it
really - it is not a personal failure.
It is a systems failure.
And these are peoplewho work hard every day.
And so giving them the autonomyto make the decision - because
they know what's best - so thatwas how we pushed back on it.
But I think the greatest pushback cameat the end, and now, when we heard
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the anecdotal stories about how thiscash actually changed someone's life.
And how - we'll talk about - eventhe real data shows the effects of
what these cash payments have done.
But I will tell you - just anecdotally- some of the stories that we heard
at the end of the pilot was a womanwho has been one of our really great
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storytellers talked about the factthat it came right during COVID.
And she and her son and her grandson alllive together, and her son is autistic.
So the question was - who's goingto be able to stay home with the
grandson and make sure that he'sstill getting through school?
And so the grandmotherwas able to do that.
But also in the midst of that,they were able to pay off bills
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and increase their credit scoreso that they could buy a house.
And I saw this woman yesterday - tellingme that they are in a position and next
year they will be purchasing a home.
And so it's stories like that thathelp overcome some of that pushback of
what people have said, and probably insome instances will continue to say.
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And I think that what's great is that,especially being part of Mayors for
a Guaranteed Income, is that thatstory didn't just happen in Stockton.
That story didn't just happen in Tacoma.
That story happened in all of thecities where there was a guaranteed
income pilot, whether that was St.
Paul, Minnesota or Jackson, Mississippi.
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People have actual stories abouthow people were able to help
lift themselves out of poverty.
We even have stories about peoplewho had an opportunity because they
could breathe for a moment - theycould think about their future.
We had one person who - because he coulddo that - took the opportunity when he
went to work to take some courses onlineand actually get more certificates.
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So by the time he no longer was receivingthe guaranteed income, he actually
had replaced the guaranteed income bybeing able to get these certificates
and make more money at his current.
job.
So it's stories like that thatreally tell the truth about what
guaranteed income does, and notjust the ideas of what people have
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about people who live in poverty.
Absolutely.
Dona, what attitudes,misconceptions, ideas did you
encounter throughout this project?
And did you see any minds changeor surprising experiences from the
participants and from the community?
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Number one, my board was very much insupport of this - so it helps when your
board is behind you, when you're goingto do something of this magnitude that
has potential to maybe do some harm.
Not to the people receivingit, but you don't want to
harm the organization, right?
But I really felt, and my board reallyfelt, that if we're serious about
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focusing on these ALICE families andmoving families out of poverty, this is
one of the tools to be able to do that.
So some of the pushback just overall,because we were the administrators - we
helped in the development of theplanning and the implementation - I
think just many people felt thatwe were giving individuals money
for free, which is why we were veryintentional about using ALICE to start.
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Because ALICE families - youhad to be working, you had
to have children in the home.
And I think for some people that reallydid help them to understand - Okay,
this is a pilot, they're testing it out.
I always used to say we're partof a national research effort, and
we're gathering information to seethe efficacy of cash assistance
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programs throughout the country.
That helped quite a bit because alot of people were like - Well, let's
wait and see what the data says.
So I'm thrilled that we finally havethe report and we're going to be able to
share all of that information because it'sthe stories that really, I think, help.
As a United Way, we do a lot of thingsaround convening people, bringing people
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together, but we also need donors.
So has this impacted some of the donorsthat have given to us in the past?
And I'll be honest insaying - yes, it has.
But at the same time,it's brought new donors.
There are people that arereally excited about this.
I've been actually very pleasantlysurprised at donors that have been
very excited about guaranteed incomeand wanting to see what they can do.
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And in fact, we have a donor thatgave us an additional - I think it was
$100,000 - to add additional familiesto this second round, that we're in, of
giving cash assistance to individuals.
So what we're hearing from the clients- really just to add to what the mayor
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was saying - is that it really justgave them time to just pause, time
to do things with their families.
That was another big thing that wesaw - when you're working a couple
of jobs, you don't have a whole lotof time to spend with your kids.
And this gave them an opportunity tospend time with their children, time
to look for a better job and so forth.
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But it also - and this came out in thereport - it made people more hopeful.
They knew it was going to end so that theycould do some things while they had this
$500 a month for - in the first phase,for 13 months - but it gave them the
opportunity to plan and to look ahead.
And so that was veryhopeful for many of them.
We heard that a lot, and wesaw that a lot in the report.
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Absolutely.
There are so many life-changingexperiences that have happened
because of this, some really touchingstories that individual families have
talked about and have experienced.
And this is also, as you said, part ofa real comprehensive research effort to
really quantify, study, and explore thebroad implications and effects of this.
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And so in this Tacoma pilot, there wasa treatment group and a control group.
And comparisons made between the two, toget at if - are some of the ideas that
we have about what might result accurate?
Are they not?
What do we learn?
What are the new things?
So what are the broadfindings that you found?
And can you overview what thetreatment and control groups looked
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like and what those key findings were?
So there was 110 individuals in thetreatment group - the recipients
that received the $500 a month- and there was 132 individuals
that were in the control group.
We had about 2,500 overall applications,so that's what told us there's a
need out there in our community.
The research was all done by theUniversity of Pennsylvania Center
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for Guaranteed Income Research - sovery academic, research-oriented.
And so they did all the randomization- it was randomized control group,
randomized treatment group.
And the key findings - and I'll startoff and then I'll turn it over to the
mayor - in terms of just financialresilience, one of the things that
we saw is that there were significantimprovements in financial stability,
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a reduction in income volatility, aincrease in stable full-time employment.
And for me, that was really positiveto see because - people need cash,
and this gave them an opportunity toupskill, to get additional trainings.
Less food insecurity - and we cantalk about that a little bit later
because food insecurity is a hugeproblem, just still a problem.
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And then reduced housing burden.
Some of the specifics around the financialpiece of it is recipients exhibited
significantly higher mean income thanpeople in the control group, which was
sustained six months after the program.
And then again, they experiencedless income volatility - you would
hope to see that, and I'm glad wedid see that throughout the findings.
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Recipients also exhibitedsignificant improvements in financial
resilience, particularly in theirability to manage a $400 emergency.
Savings is a big deal, and we know somany Americans don't have enough in their
savings to cover any kind of an emergency.
The control group experienceda reduction in financial
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resilience during the same period.
And also, too, we have to keep inmind that this was during COVID.
So the first payment wentout in December of 2021.
So we were still - it was still there,it was still impacting families.
And so the control group - one of thethings that we saw with regards to savings
is that the control group had highersavings than the recipient group, the
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treatment group at the beginning of this.
But at the end of the program, itwas the control group - which makes
sense - they had fewer savings and thetreatment group increased their savings.
And have to make some assumptions thatthat was because of COVID and having
to use more of their savings to get by.
So I'll turn it over to themayor - we really highlighted four
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different areas - the financial, theemployment, food security and housing.
Thanks, Dona.
And I'll just give you somedata around what we learned
in the employment piece of it.
So recipients went from 57% beingemployed full-time to 66% of the
recipients working full-time sixmonths after the payments stopped.
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So this whole idea that people are goingto quit their jobs for a cash assistance
payment - this proves that actually morepeople went to work when it was done.
We also learned that the data demonstratedstability of full-time employment
among recipients over time was at
63%, but in the controlgroup was only 52%.
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So again, an 11-point lift to peoplewho just received a mere $6,000.
We are not talking about$60,000 or $6 million.
$6,000.
And so I think the data reallyshows what we already know.
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And I'll give you a story thatwe heard from a recipient,
who had his handyman business.
And he was able to buy better tools- to put more investment into his
business - which led to more jobs anda greater sense of stability for him.
But there is something thatdata can't always measure.
And so these were his words, butthat sense of stability, paired
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with the steady payments fromGRIT - gave him the confidence.
It made him feel better abouthimself and what he was doing in
life to rebuild and reinvest inhis relationship with his children.
So the fact that he could now carefor his children in a way that made
him more comfortable as a fathercaused him to re-engage and reinvest
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in his relationship with his kids.
Where else does that happen?
Where else does that happen?
And then as it relates to housing- affordability and quality housing - we
know that recipients consistentlydisplayed a reduced cost burden
compared to those in the control group.
The other part of that was that a greaterportion of recipients have the opportunity
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to transition into higher qualityhomes or more desirable neighborhoods
compared to the control group.
So another perfect example,especially - and this is really
important as we think about what'shappening across the country - housing
affordability is an issue in every city.
And $500 can be the difference betweenbeing able to pay your rent or your
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mortgage and ending up in a shelter.
But even in some of these cases, there wasa young woman who got to actually - within
three months of getting the cash payments- was able to move to a safer place.
Because prior to that,she couldn't do that.
And this woman had actually been attackedtwice in front of her old apartment.
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So if you can imagine the fear ofgoing in and out, of leaving her
house, the confidence of knowing thatshe would be safe, and now then being
able to move to a place where shefelt safer - so what does that mean?
She gets out more often.
She improves her mental health.
Potentially, she finds a better job.
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So this cash assistance, again,doesn't just help out in one area.
It really can change the lives andthe trajectory of people in our
community who live either in povertyor just on the line of poverty.
I did find it striking that - $500to a lot of people, especially those
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who are not living in poverty, seemslike, Well, that's not that much.
How much of a differencecan that really make?
And my goodness, the difference thatit made in so many of the lives of the
recipients was - can they live in a placewhere they feel their kids are safe?
Can they afford to gather theskills to go back to work and
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increase their earning potential?
Are they able to have a moresecure place for their kids?
Can they spend more time with their kids?
Which is so huge - I think a lot oftimes we underestimate just how precious
and how much of a luxury just time is.
Crystal, if I could - you bring meto just want to share one more thing.
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I was talking about Geno earlierwho had the opportunity to take
some classes at work and beable to upskill in his own job.
Geno also happened to be a singlefather with three teenage boys.
And one of his sons was doingpoorly in school, so every night
at dinner - that was the issue.
They sat down on the table,it became an argument.
Nobody wanted to sitdown at the dinner table.
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He also used some of his money to get hisson a tutor, so his son's grades improved.
So when they sat down at thetable, there wasn't an argument.
They liked to come to the tablenow and discuss their day because
there wasn't this looming thingover everybody's head about - Oh
God, he's going to ask about grades.
But the other thing Geno did, and thethings that we often take for granted
- how many of us think about, You know,I want to take my kids to a movie.
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I want to take my kids roller skating.
I want to do something with my family.
And then you just go do it.
Geno, for the first time, gotto take his kids roller skating.
And while that seems so insignificant- in the dynamics of a family, that
can be so powerful and so impactful.
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And so sometimes when I say that,somebody will say - He used the
money to take his kids skating?
But people have - as you just said,Crystal - the thought that people just
get more time to spend with their family.
Or there's another person who said - Ihad an opportunity to quit my second job
and put more focus onto my family, butthen also upskill and make more money.
So it just - obviously you could tell I'ma big cheerleader and I really believe
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what it does for families - but the simplethings in life that some of us so often
take for granted can have a big impact.
It truly does.
And as we talked about, thesepilots have happened in so many
communities across the country.
Sukhi, how have the findingsfrom GRIT in Tacoma compared
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with what you've seen nationally?
What we saw in Tacoma is similar to whatwe're seeing nationwide, which is that
when you give people money, it works.
When you give peoplemoney, they work more.
And above all, when you invest ina recipient, you're unlocking a
world of potential for them, fortheir children, and their community.
Over and over again - whether it's St.
(32:26):
Paul, Minnesota, or Tacoma, or Stockton,California, or Patterson, New Jersey
- we see that guaranteed income leadsto more employment, it leads to less
stress and anxiety for the recipient, itleads to better housing outcomes, less
food insecurity that folks are facing.
So really, again, what we'reseeing in Tacoma is what
we've seen elsewhere as well.
(32:47):
And we're really excited that we havethis body of evidence from a multitude
of cities that shows over and overagain that guaranteed income works.
And how have you seenthe reaction nationally?
Just from a layman's perspective, I'veseen a lot of people who have read about
many of the pilot programs become veryexcited about the possibility of this.
(33:10):
I've seen people in policy circlesexcited about it - a lot of times
because it's so straightforward - thecost of implementation is so much lower
than standing up entire departmentsand administrations to means test and
determine and distribute the assistance.
And also, some continued skepticism frompeople who aren't sure that people will
(33:31):
just take advantage of the money, orthey don't have to earn the money, or
no one's checking up to make sure thatit's really being spent on the right
kinds of things and not frivolous things.
What kinds of reactionshave you seen nationally?
We're really excited that because ofthe leadership of folks like Mayor
Woodards and Dona, we've been able togrow guaranteed income from a single
(33:54):
movement in Stockton, Californiawith Mayor Tubbs to this nationwide
movement of mayors and countyofficials, state legislators, et cetera.
We're really excited about cashbecause it's a simple way to respond to
folks' urgent and most pressing needs.
And we've seen that the work that we'vedone has not only shifted the policy,
but it's also shifted public opinion.
(34:16):
In a poll that we did at the endof 2023, we saw actually that a
bipartisan majority of Americans, 62%,would support the federal government
putting in place a guaranteed incomeof either $500 or $1,000 a month.
And that support went across politicalparties, went across age, race, gender.
And even at that point, 47% of Republicanssupported it, which is higher than
(34:39):
any Republican support for otherwelfare social entitlement programs.
So, through the data we've seen thatguaranteed income is good policy.
And through the polling, weknow it's good politics as well.
And so, over these next couple ofyears, our hope is that we can continue
to build on the work that we'vedone at the local level and build
up to the state and federal level.
So, I want to talk about whatthis does look like for policy.
(35:02):
As other cities, counties,states are looking at this and
saying - Okay, I see value here.
How do we craft and implement thisfor our communities, our states?
How do you recommend theygo about that process?
I will start to tell you a little bitabout what we're doing in the state
of Washington, which - I'm so proud ofthe work that's happening statewide.
(35:24):
There's actually a group, a statewidegroup, that has been talking about
guaranteed basic income - gosh, for atleast the four years that we've been
engaged in this - I feel like we startedand then this group was bubbling up.
But there have been several timeswhere a bill has actually made it out
of committee, but died on the floor.
(35:44):
However, in that process, moreand more legislators get a chance
to hear what is this guaranteedincome - we share the stories.
For us, what happened after the Mayors forthe Guaranteed Income demonstration ended,
we were able to - through a relationshipthat the mayor has and we all have with
(36:04):
the Speaker of the House - we were ableto get a proviso in the state budget.
Because the bigger onedied - it was too expensive.
So we were able to get a $1.9 millionproviso in the state budget to continue
doing what we were doing here inTacoma in some of the outer zip codes
in some of the unincorporated areas.
So now we have 175 families that aregetting $500 a month - started in
(36:29):
March and it goes through next March.
But we continue to look at waysand having conversations with the
Department of Health and Human Services,because they're very interested.
Governor Inslee created a povertyreduction workgroup back in 2018, I
believe it was - and I was on that.
And what we did is we developeda 10-year plan to end poverty.
(36:52):
And this included folks withlived experience presenting
these strategies - and one of thestrategies is around cash assistance.
So there's energy and momentum - wehave to build the appetite here
in Washington state - we need thatpublic will and the political will.
We need enough of the political willto continue to do what we did here in
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Tacoma in other parts of the state.
It's baby steps, but I thinkwe're going to get there.
And Mayor Woodards - asDona just said, building the
political will is so critical.
What would your recommendation be to othermayors, to other municipal and county
elected officials who are looking to buildsupport for this in their communities?
(37:36):
What can they learn from how you'venavigated and approached this?
I would say - if there are mayorswho are interested, reach out to
Mayors for a Guaranteed Income.
The great thing about being engagedin this work is that you don't have
to start from scratch, and you don'thave to figure it out all by yourself.
Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, andnow Counties for a Guaranteed Income,
(37:57):
and soon Governor - I mean, everybody'sgoing to be for a guaranteed income.
But they have a treasure fullof information and support
that they will give you.
And even point you in the right directionwhere opportunity exists - where you might
potentially get funding to do your pilot.
They also know of everycity that's done a pilot.
So I say - if you're not sure, you want tolearn more - obviously you can reach out
(38:20):
to the City of Tacoma or to United Way.
We'll share everything we have.
But the other thing is reaching outto Mayors for a Guaranteed Income.
You can get - not just Tacoma, butyou can get information on every city.
You can learn about whatdifferent pilots have done.
Like we focused onALICE, as I said earlier.
Some folks focused on single mothers.
Some focused on people who were going tocollege and paid them while they stayed
(38:43):
in college so they could finish college.
So there's all kinds of pilots out there.
So that's the first thing I would say.
The second thing that I would sayis - there's always going to be pushback
when you're trying to change a system.
I am not going to lie andsay - Oh, just stand one up,
everybody will jump behind it.
No, you got to be bold to be ableto say - I'm going to do this
(39:05):
kind of program in my community.
And all you really have tosay - because as Sukhi was talking
about, what's happening acrossthe country and what's different.
I'll tell you, while every city didsomething a little bit different, I
would ask Sukhi - Sukhi, has there beena city that didn't have positive results?
And I think Sukhi would easily say- No, every city had positive results.
(39:28):
So don't be afraid, be bold, do it, andthen your data will be able to prove
everyone wrong who didn't believe thatthis kind of program could be effective
in lifting people out of poverty.
So that's my advice.
And again, what we also know is a reality.
Cities definitely can'tdo it by themselves.
(39:48):
States don't have enough ongoing fundingto be able to support a program like this.
I'm glad that Tacoma and PierceCounty are now doing GRIT 2.0 with
some funding we got from the state.
But the long-term implementationand sustainability of this kind of
program is at the federal level.
(40:10):
And so, trying a pilot just helps usgain more data and more steam and more
support to continue to lobby at thefederal level to say we need a cash
assistance program or guaranteed income- whatever you want to call it - but we
need this kind of program nationally.
(40:33):
And the other thing I'd love Dona justto share - she's just really good at
talking about - and that's just, duringCOVID, we did some cash assistance
programs and they were successful.
So Dona, will you add that in?
Because you've got thosestatistics a lot better than I do.
Yes.
Well, I don't know if I have all ofthem right off the top of my head, but
during COVID, families received stimulus.
(40:55):
Most, if not all, families receivedstimulus payments from the federal
government, along with the childcaretax credits that they received.
And all of those things helpedlift ALICE families out of poverty.
And then when those childcare taxcredits, for instance, ended - I
believe in December of '21 - those samechildren plummeted back into poverty.
(41:18):
So the thing about it is, isthat the resources are there.
If you think about it - during COVID,the federal government was able to
help families throughout this country.
And so we have to think differentlyabout how the current streams
of resources are being used.
For instance, there's been somediscussion - in fact, in the state here,
(41:41):
it was recently a part of discussionabout TANF dollars - and those dollars
are actually block grant dollarsthat the state has some flexibility.
And we are looking at - is there a way touse public and private dollars to be able
to continue to do these kinds of pilots?
(42:01):
But to the mayor's point, that'snot sustainable long term.
The money has got to come from somewhere.
But I personally think - and I thinkthere's more people that think that
way - we have to look at some ofthe pools of dollars that are out
there right now, where families haveto jump over hoop after hoop after
hoop just to get public assistance.
(42:22):
And so how do you remove some of thosebarriers and utilize some of those dollars
to give unconditional cash assistance?
So I think that's also part of thework ahead, because it's always going
to be - There's not enough money.
Right?
But we put trillions of dollarsinto the safety net, and our
(42:42):
families aren't any better off.
Yes, there's success stories, but as awhole, families are struggling even more.
And so I think during COVID, wewere able to solve for that problem.
And it's just going to, again,take the public and the political
will to make changes happen.
And as we just move to close today- obviously, there's a lot of conversations
(43:06):
happening here in Washington state.
As we look at this movement nationally,Sukhi, what is next for the pilots?
What's next for moving the conversationon guaranteed income forward?
There's a couple of things.
The first is that both the Harris-Walzticket and the Trump-Vance ticket had
(43:26):
run on an expanded child tax credit.
And so making sure that as we'retransitioning from campaign to actual
governance - whatever that may looklike - that the promises that were
made on the campaign trail stay true.
And that whatever tax conversation happensnext year doesn't weigh too much in favor
of corporations, and instead does havesomething baked in for working families.
(43:47):
And so while the election outcomesweren't what we wanted, we will
continue to work alongside the incomingadministration and align our mayors - that
we are advocating as much as possibleto include some benefits for working
class families in whatever iterationof a new tax bill comes out next year.
In addition to that - over these nextcouple of years, we will continue to build
(44:08):
the case that guaranteed income works- continue to do it at the local level,
county level, and also at the state level.
As Mayor Woodards said, states don'tnecessarily have the budget for
long-term guaranteed income programs.
But states can have the budgetfor shorter-term pilots so that
we're expanding beyond just ourmetropolitan centers and making
the case in rural areas, as well,that guaranteed income work.
So excited to push statewide legislationforward for temporary guaranteed income
(44:32):
programs that are a little bit moretargeted, and to just continue to make
the case and continue the drumbeatof success for guaranteed income.
Well, thank you all for joining us- helping to educate our listeners today.
For really moving thenational conversation forward.
For producing such a wonderful reportthat we'll include in our episode
(44:53):
notes - over a 50-page report onGRIT in Tacoma - the study, the
outcomes, and the findings from that.
And we will continue tofollow the progress of this in
Washington state and the nation.
Sukhi Samra, Mayor Victoria Woodards,and the award-winning Dona Ponepinto
of United Way of Pierce County - thankyou all so much for joining us today.
(45:16):
Thank you.
Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks,which is produced by Shannon Cheng.
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(45:40):
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(46:02):
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