The concept of a "universal basic income" has inspired widespread interest in recent years.
More than interest — when former US presidential candidate Andrew Yang announced that a UBI program of $1,000 direct payments to citizens every month would be the keystone policy of his platform, he drew an unexpected amount of grassroots support in a crowded primary year. Guaranteed income programs have been gaining even more traction during the pandemic, which took a particular toll on low-wage workers and threw many Americans into poverty. At least 11 direct-cash experiments went into effect this year, Bloomberg estimated in January.
Former Stockton, California mayor Michael Tubbs, took the idea to the next level by launching the Mayors for a Guaranteed Income network. As of this year, there are 60 mayors in the program, advocating — and launching pilot programs for — guaranteed income for their residents. California recently launched the first statewide guaranteed income program in the US, providing up to $1000 per month to qualifying pregnant people and young adults leaving the foster care system.
The basic income program that Tubbs launched in Stockton in 2019, the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration, has been considered the model for other cities that have followed in its footsteps, offering low-income residents hundreds of dollars a month and measuring their job prospects, financial stability, and overall well-being afterward. According to SEED, participants improved in all those metrics.
Nika Soon-Shiong, a co-director of the Compton, California, guaranteed income program Compton Pledge, told Insider in November that basic income programs help people who are typically shut out of welfare programs.
"Guaranteed income makes a case for investing in our undocumented neighbors and formerly incarcerated residents," Soon-Shiong she said. "In doing so, it addresses the reality of the nation's fragmented, punitive welfare structure."
This kind of program isn't a new idea, however. The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians Casino Dividend in North Carolina has been giving tribal members annual funds since 1997, for instance. Alaska has been paying residents out of its oil dividends since 1982. Canada ran basic income experiments in the 1970s. The general idea of providing people with a universal basic income is itself hundreds of years of old.
Here's a look at all the active or recently active guaranteed income programs in the US, in no particular order.