By Sonali Kolhatkar for Yes! Media.
Broadcast version by Lily Böhlke for New York News Connection reporting for the YES! Media-Public News Service Collaboration

Maureen Gardner is proud of her 5-month-old son Garrett, who she says can already identify the color red and is growing so fast that he fits into clothes for a 1-year-old. Last July in New York City, a month before Garrett was born, Gardner began receiving $1,000 in cash monthly from The Bridge Project as part of a guaranteed income program intended to reduce poverty among women of color in the city.

"This was really a godsend for me," she says from her apartment in Harlem, speaking in hushed tones while Garrett naps.

Guaranteed income projects are distinct from presidential candidate Andrew Yang's idea of a universal basic income, which is premised on cash payments to everyone, not just the most vulnerable. A prominent example of a guaranteed income project is the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration, which put $500 a month into the hands of 125 low-income residents of Stockton, California, for 24 months. Data gathered from the SEED project found that the cash significantly helped recipients stabilize their finances, acquire jobs, and improve their mental health, compared with a control group.

Can Guaranteed Incomes Benefit Low-Income Women and Children of Color?

Buoyed by the success of the Stockton experiment, guaranteed income projects, like the one Gardner is part of, are cropping up in major cities around the country. With the understanding that systemic economic racism results in disproportionate poverty within Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities, many projects are specifically targeting low-income people of color, and primarily women and mothers.

Megha Agarwal, the executive director of The Bridge Project and of The Monarch Foundation, which funds the program, explains that it "was formed out of our desire to support the babies and mothers in New York and beyond who are suffering devastating effects from poverty." According to Agarwal, of the 100 mothers currently enrolled in the program, 74% identify as Hispanic or Latino, and 40% identify as Black; 20% are undocumented. "Guaranteed income has long been on the list of demands to receive racial and economic liberation," she says.

A similar program, run by the Georgia Resilience and Opportunity Fund, also focuses on women of color-specifically Black women-in Atlanta. Hope Wollensack, the executive director of the GRO Fund and co-director of the In Her Hands Guaranteed Income Initiative based in Atlanta's Old 4th Ward, says it is "the largest program focusing on Black women in the country."

"Centering Black women is really important," Wollensack explains, because "they are one of the groups experiencing the most acute and sharpest impacts of economic insecurity that exists."

"He's already very smart," says Gardner of her son Garrett, beaming with pride. "I'm thinking, like, 'Let's buy some flash cards, let's buy sensory toys.'" Now that she has a modest but steady flow of cash, Gardner has the freedom and means to focus on her son's development-something that may be an unaffordable luxury for children born into low-income households.

"I do think that his brain development is higher than those who might not have access to the funds to be able to buy things for their children," says Gardner.

Underscoring the importance of such monthly payments, neuroscientists recently concluded in a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that cash aid to low-income mothers improves the cognitive functioning of their newborn babies. Agarwal, whose program gives exclusively to mothers, says The Bridge Project is premised on the fact that "the first 1,000 days of a child's life are really a crucial period of development physically, mentally, and cognitively."

The Dignity Afforded by Money With No Strings Attached

Aside from helping to foster the cognitive development of newborns, cash aid to mothers affords them basic necessities. When Gardner was about to have her baby, she realized that something as simple as doing laundry was going to be a problem. Although her apartment building has a common laundry room for residents, it presented a serious challenge for a mother living alone with a newborn during a pandemic. "My thoughts were like, 'I can't go to the laundry room with my baby,'" she explains. "I can wear a mask, but my baby doesn't even have shots. I have no help with him. It's just me."

It was a conundrum that neither she nor a caseworker at a welfare office were likely to have anticipated until the need arose. But with discretionary cash on hand, Gardner had the freedom to solve her problem when it cropped up without having to prove her need to an aid officer, fill out paperwork, or track receipts. She simply purchased a compact $500 washing machine for her apartment so she and her newborn could remain safe. "Buying the washing machine had me feeling a sense of relief," she says.

For Agarwal, it is crucial that such projects guarantee incomes "with dignity, respect, and trust. That's something that you don't see with a lot of our welfare system right now."

Wollensack agrees that giving cash without any requirements is critical, saying, "We really think it's important that folks have the choice and agency to make decisions about their lives and what they need."

Existing government welfare programs-increasingly dubbed "entitlement programs" by conservatives seeking to cast them in a negative light-whether at a local, state, or federal level, require onerous amounts of paperwork to prove recipients are deserving of aid. Those receiving food stamps can only spend them on specific items. Additionally, many programs now have work requirements and may require drug testing. Guaranteed income projects, in contrast, impose no requirements on how the money can be spent and no judgments on what recipients choose to spend on.

"In the United States, we've been trained to believe that the only reason people are on welfare is because there's something wrong with their character," says Agarwal. "That's just not true."

According to Sarah Moran, the U.S. country director at GiveDirectly, which funds the In Her Hands program in Atlanta, "We don't trust people who are living in poverty in the United States. That is the way our social safety net is built, and we're trying to flip the script on that."

Gardner concurs, referring to her own experience: "It's a great feeling to feel freedom in the way that I spend it."

Can the Government Guarantee Incomes?

"While we're excited about the scope and scale of this project, we know it's not enough," says Wollensack of the Atlanta-based In Her Hands project. The guaranteed income projects in Atlanta, New York, and Stockton are all privately funded experiments aimed at generating real-world data for social scientists to analyze and at informing broader government-funded programs in the future.

In the last years of his life, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. became a proponent of the idea that the government ought to ensure all people had access to a basic income. In his 1967 speech Where Do We Go From Here, he said, "We must develop progress, or rather, a program ... that will drive the nation to a guaranteed annual income." Dr. King added, "The dignity of the individual will flourish when the decisions concerning his life are in his own hands, when he has the assurance that his income is stable and certain."

Now, the city of Los Angeles has launched the nation's largest government-funded guaranteed income pilot project, giving $1,000 a month to 3,000 families for a year. The Basic Income Guaranteed: Los Angeles Economic Assistance Pilot, whose acronym is fittingly BIG:LEAP, accepted applicants in 2021 whose household income fell below the poverty line and is slated to begin payments soon. The cash will not replace existing government assistance but will instead supplement it.

Chicago is planning a similarly sized project with a larger pool of people receiving smaller monthly payments. And momentum is building for publicly funded programs in cities across the country as leaders organize under the network Mayors for a Guaranteed Income.

The closest the federal government recently came to a guaranteed income project was the monthly child tax credit program that sent payments to low-income parents as part of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. But amid claims that such payments could disincentivize employment, Congress chose to let that program expire in 2022.

Do Cash Transfers Work?

Wollensack dismisses the naysayers, saying, "If $850 a month is compelling enough against labor market wages that people are no longer incentivized to work, I think that's more of an indictment on [how] current wages [compare] to the cost of living than it is about our program."

Moran says, "Empirically, there is just no evidence that cash transfer programs discourage work." According to her organization's website, GiveDirectly "is currently running the largest universal basic income experiment in history," and has "conducted more than 10 randomized control trials."

In addition to labor concerns, critics of government aid say it causes inflation. "If large swaths of Americans have to live in poverty so that inflation stays below 2%, then something fundamentally about our economy isn't working," contends Wollensack.

Over the brief six-month duration of the child tax credit program, the modest monthly payments of a few hundred dollars cut child poverty by almost 30%. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, more than 90% of low-income families receiving the payments used the money "for the most basic household expenses-food, clothing, shelter, and utilities-or education."

"Our national social safety net is predicated on the idea that poverty is a personal choice and not structural or a policy choice," says Moran.

In reality, Agarwal says the choice to maintain poverty is an external one-made by our government. Through the child tax credit, "We were able to alleviate poverty at massive scales." In letting the program expire, she adds, "We've said it's OK to let those people fall back into poverty."

For women like Gardner, a modest amount of available cash is making a world of difference. "I don't know what I would be doing if I didn't have it," she says.

Sonali Kolhatkar wrote this article for YES! Magazine.


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South Dakotans passed Amendment F on Election Day, opening the door to impose work requirements on people who qualify for expanded Medicaid benefits.

Opponents said it could interrupt health treatment for those fighting cancer and other diseases. Any bill outlining work requirements for Medicaid would still need state passage and federal approval.

A report from the Congressional Budget Office on the effects of a similar rule finds it would reduce federal spending, decrease the number of people with health insurance and would not increase employment.

Ben Hanson, South Dakota government relations director for the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, said it would also cost the state.

"For the most part, state health departments will tell you, you're not going to save money by doing this," Hanson asserted. "You're going to wind up spending more to create a bureaucracy to oversee this new set of forms and paperwork they have to fill out, for an already qualifying population."

President-elect Donald Trump approved work requirements in 13 states during his last term, all of which were rescinded or withdrawn under President Joe Biden. South Dakota is one of nine states with pending programs or legislation to allow them.

Most adults with Medicaid benefits who are able to work are doing so. According to the health research organization KFF, of those under age 65 who do not have other state-sponsored care, 91% are either working, or not working because they are students, caregivers or are ill themselves. Hanson said, for instance, many people who go through cancer treatment miss work for several months because of its physical toll.

"This could take away your coverage for getting that treatment while you're trying to get better so you can go be an employee again," Hanson noted. "And more importantly, so you can survive your cancer diagnosis."

Hanson added work requirements might also prevent early cancer detection, which leads to more expensive treatment and worse outcomes.


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A new report from the Headwaters Foundation in Montana showed at least half the people who receive public assistance are only enrolled for one year, dispelling a myth recipients are getting long-term government aid.

Nearly two-thirds of people only receive one form of assistance. More than 120,000 Montana families receive government aid every year, based on their income.

Erin Switalski, program director for the foundation, said they wanted to know who the recipients are, why they are enrolled in public assistance programs and for how long.

"People are really receiving public assistance for short periods of time," Switalski reported. "We found that folks primarily are caregivers in the family. So, they might be caring for children; they might be caring for parents or an older adult."

The report found Montana's public assistance programs lift 69% of older adults and 44% of children out of poverty, and the numbers could be higher. The report estimated 40% of Montana families who are eligible for help do not get it because a variety of barriers prevent them from enrolling.

Bryce Ward, founder of ABMJ Consulting, was commissioned by the foundation to do the study, called "Supporting Our Neighbors." Ward said the variety of people on public assistance was surprising and well over half don't receive these benefits for more than a year.

"Those that are in for the longer periods of time are probably those you might imagine, right?" Ward observed. "They's the people who report more disabilities, families with young kids, and single parents."

The report also found 97% of families with children who receive public assistance but have no aging or disabled members in the household have at least one person who works full-time.

A new report showed more than 100,000 eligible Virginians 65 and older are not enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

With senior participation rates at just 37.4%, advocates are calling for urgent action, particularly during Hunger Action Month.

Cassie Edner, public benefits attorney and director of Virginia Hunger Solutions at the Virginia Poverty Law Center, explained several factors contribute to the low enrollment, according to the report by the National Council on Aging and the Urban Institute. She noted a general lack of awareness and the complexity of applying for benefits in the Commonwealth may be key barriers for many, regardless of eligibility.

"It just could be too low," Edner acknowledged. "We often hear of people that say, hey, this isn't worth going through the hoops that we have to go through in order to receive just $23 per month."

Despite progress made with programs such as the Elderly Simplified Application Project, which streamlines the process for seniors without earned income, Edner emphasized more must be done to reach the most vulnerable populations. The Virginia Food Access Coalition and the Federation of Virginia Food Banks are partnering with the coalition to urge legislators to reduce administrative barriers to SNAP participation.

Edner and other advocates are urging policymakers to raise the minimum SNAP benefit for seniors to $50 per month and simplify the application process. In the meantime, the center operates a hotline to assist seniors in navigating the benefits process. She said many seniors are unaware of deductions to help increase their minimum benefit.

"You just need more than $35 in medical expenses for seniors and individuals with disability to get a $200 deduction for medical expenses, and we often see this not used often," Edner observed. "In some of the state, it may be difficult to receive information about SNAP."

Edner suggested mailing issues could be a factor, as the report shows the lowest SNAP enrollment rates are in Southeast and Northern Virginia, with fewer than one in four eligible seniors receiving benefits in York County and Poquoson City.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's 2023 Household Food Security Report revealed 13.5% of U.S. households, 18 million in total, experienced food insecurity last year. In Virginia, 10% of the population faced food insecurity between 2021 and 2023.