California City to Give Cash Payments to Its Low-Income Residents

By Mary Anne R. Oct 21 2020, 04:34 AM EDT

A California city will hand out cash payments to hundreds of its low-income residents starting later this year.

Compton Mayor Aja Brown said that this would be done through a pilot program called Compton Pledge. It guarantees cash payments between $300 and $600 to a group of 800 "pre-verified" residents each month for two years.

This program will also give them access to free banking services. The money is available for irregularly or informally employed residents, including immigrants of varying in legal status, and the formerly incarcerated, according to a USA Today report.

Brown said that she knows firsthand what guaranteed income could have done for her own mother.

"People in our community are going through tough times, and I know that guaranteed income could give people a moment to navigate their situation and have some breathing room to go back to school, explore a new career path, spend time with their children, or improve their mental and emotional wellbeing," Brown said in a report.

Compton Residents

Over 20 percent of Compton's residents are mainly Black and Hispanics, who live in poverty, double the national average.

Unemployment has also grown to 21.9 percent ever since the pandemic started, according to the program.

The program aims to challenge the racial and economic injustice that lives within the welfare programs. Officials said that the programs' effectiveness would be reviewed every six months.

More than $2.5 million were collected in private donations, and organizers hope to gather a total of $8.1 million from private sources.

The Compton's mayor has partnered with dozens of community organizations. It includes the Fund for Guaranteed Income and the Jain Family Institute.

The program is considered as the largest and longest-term income program in the U.S. However, Compton is not the first city to experiment with universal basic income.

Stockton, California, became the first U.S. city to try the idea in 2019. It was done by giving $500 debit cards every month to 125 residents who earn less than $46,000 per year.

Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs and Brown are both involved in a group of 25 mayors pushing for a national system of direct payments to families who need it most.

Tubbs said he looks forward to seeing the data support on what Brown already knows to be true of her constituents, adding that poverty stems from a lack of cash, not a lack of character.

An advocate of the Compton Pledge, Patrisse Cullors, said that guaranteed income is a much-needed strategy for responding to economic realities of racial injustice.

Cullors is also a co-founder of the Black Lives Matter movement. She added that she is thrilled that Brown and Compton are leading the way in this national movement, according to a Fox Business report.

A Next City report said that a recent poll by The Hill found that the majority of voters now support the concept of universal basic income. The poll shows an increase of 12 percentage points from just one year earlier.