Angelenos can officially begin applying for Los Angeles County's guaranteed income program. The program will select 1,000 random applicants to receive $1,000 a month for 3 years, no strings attached.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved the motion, introduced by Mitchell and Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, to create the program on May 18, 2021. The motion also declared poverty and economic opportunity a public health matter.
"The course of this pandemic has revealed the large number of county residents who are living on the brink of financial crisis, with insufficient savings to weather a job loss, a medical emergency or a major car repair," Kuehl said. "This guaranteed income program will help give residents the breathing room they need to better weather those crises. There is ample evidence from guaranteed income projects around the country that financial support, coupled with the freedom to make their own decisions about how best to spend their money, offers families the flexibility they need to establish stability and invest in a more prosperous future for themselves.
"There is so much we still do not know about the power of unconditional cash over a longer period of time. With a three-year pilot, it opens up the possibility for families to set larger goals than we have seen in other experiments and it also gives policymakers a chance to learn how unconditional cash functions alongside other programs over time," said Dr. Amy Beth Castro of the University of Pennsylvania Center for Guaranteed Income Research.
The pilot program is based on a similar program in Stockton, California, that has been praised for its success. The city of Los Angeles also launched a guaranteed basic income program, called BIG:LEAP, last year.