Mayors back Universal Basic Income
Mayors for a Guaranteed Income send letter to Time magazine urging ‘a policy solution that is as bold as it is innovative and as simple as it is ambitious’
The Martin Luther King Memorial in Washington, D.C.: the civil-rights leader’s proposal for “a guaranteed income for all Americans” is getting a new hearing. (Public domain)
By Ted Cox
Mayors representing 7 million residents and including the nation’s second-largest city have formed a coalition backing Universal Basic Income.
Jumping off from the Rev. Martin Luther King’s 1967 proposal for “a guaranteed income for all Americans,” the mayors of 11 major U.S. cities sent a letter to Time magazine published Monday that revives that idea and says it’s needed now to address long-term social inequities that have been magnified by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Economic insecurity isn’t new and poverty itself is violent,” the letter states. “We need a policy solution that is as bold as it is innovative and as simple as it is ambitious.”
The coalition Mayors for a Guaranteed Income is led by Mayor Michael Tubbs of Stockton, Calif., which according to the letter “launched the nation’s first mayor-led guaranteed-income demonstration, with the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration giving 125 randomly selected recipients $500 a month for 24 months.”
The letter added that “early data from the program proves what we’ve intuitively known to be true: that people are working but the economy isn’t. And because SEED’s recipients are people like you and us, they’re spending the money like you and we would: on basic needs like food, transportation, utilities, and rent.”
The coalition includes Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba of Jackson, Miss., who’s been “supportive” of the Magnolia Mother’s Trust, a non-government program that gives $1,000 a month to African American mothers living in extreme poverty. Aisha Nyandoro, head of the Springboard to Opportunities grassroots group that launched the program, spoke at the Chicago Community Trust on its success just last November.
Aisha Nyandoro, founder of the Magnolia Mother’s Trust, discusses the cash-distribution program with Ameya Pawar last fall at the Chicago Community Trust. (One Illinois/Ted Cox)
But it also includes Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, who launched an Angeleno Campaign providing prepaid debit cards of $700 to $1,500 to residents whose total household income fell below the poverty line — before the pandemic hit — and Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms.
Others who’ve already initiated UBI-style pilot programs include Mayor Melvin Carter of St. Paul, Minn., who issued a one-time cash payment of $1,000 to about 1,250 families with children in response to COVID-19, and Mayor Aja Brown of Compton, Calif., who announced a partnership with the nonprofit Give Directly, which gives cash directly to people living in poverty, to distribute $1,000 to families that receive food stamps. Mayor Ras Baraka of Newark, N.J., meanwhile, has launched a task force and released a report calling for a pilot and a federal guaranteed-income policy.
Chicago has considered a pilot UBI program, first proposed by former Ald. Ameya Pawar, founder of One Illinois. A task force formed to study the idea eventually arrived at a recommendation that the already existing Earned Income Tax Credit be expanded and perhaps launched locally.
“We applaud the mayors for coming together in support of a cash-transfer policy that will help break individuals and families from cycles of poverty,” said Harish Patel, director of Economic Security for Illinois. “Establishing a guaranteed income would strengthen our social safety net, especially for people who can't afford even one single financial emergency.
“The city of Chicago has strong potential to make guaranteed income a reality locally, while also supporting efforts to make it federal policy,” he added. “For example, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, our city partnered on various cash-transfer policies to help people who slip through the system's cracks, from a $2 million fund through the Department of Housing to the $5 million fund in partnership with The Resurrection Project. Alternatives like these demonstrate that there's a growing desire to put money back into the hands of the people who need it the most, with no strings attached.”
UBI also gained traction on the campaign trail earlier this year, as advocated by Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang. It was also credited with inspiring the $1,200 one-time stimulus payment to citizens earning under $100,000 as approved by Congress in a pandemic relief program.
The letter touts King’s original proposal for “a guaranteed income for all Americans,” and cites statistics finding that almost 40 percent of U.S. citizens can’t afford a $400 emergency, while “rising income inequality is compounded by a growing racial wealth gap,” with the median net worth of White households 10 times that of African American households and about eight times that of Hispanic households. It pointedly adds that “the wealthiest 0.1 percent in America own about the same amount of wealth as the bottom 90 percent.”
The letter states that women have it even worse, with African American women paid 62 cents on average for every dollar that a White man earns, and Hispanic women making even less at 54 cents on the dollar. It adds that inequities have been exacerbated by the pandemic, as African Americans make up 13 percent of the U.S. population, but account for 23 percent of COVID-19 deaths nationally.
“A guaranteed income is a monthly cash payment given directly to individuals,” the letter states. “It is unconditional, with no strings attached and no work requirements. A guaranteed income is meant to supplement, rather than replace, the existing social safety net and can be a tool for racial and gender equity. Direct, unconditional cash gives people the freedom to spend money on their most immediate needs — be it food for their household, repairing a car to get to work, medicine to treat a loved one, or simply rent.”
It adds: “Today, we mayors are uniting to send a clear message: our residents deserve economic security through a guaranteed income. We are calling on legislators to wake up to Dr. King’s dream for a federal guaranteed income that will put cash back into the hands of everyday Americans. Faced again with the question of chaos or community, we’re choosing the latter — it’s time to invest directly in our communities and our people.
“We welcome all U.S. mayors to join our coalition to strengthen all our communities by supplementing the existing social safety net and driving forward this powerful tool for racial and gender equity.”
Other mayors in the coalition include Adrian Perkins of Shreveport, La., Libby Schaaf of Oakland, Calif., Stephen Benjamin of Columbia, S.C., and Victoria Woodards of Tacoma, Wash.