Lately, I've been thinking a lot about the words of author and activist James Baldwin:
“We still don't understand that if I starve, you're at risk.”
What I mean by his comments is that none of us can have healthy, thriving, and safe communities when so much of our society is struggling just to meet its most basic needs.
I think about this often when I think of the hopelessness and desperation on the streets of Seattle and the widespread unwillingness to ensure that all residents have the money, food, shelter, jobs, and health care they need to survive. .
While this may be true for some, there is no way to completely protect yourself from the effects of a deeply unequal society.
In the Seattle area, the inequality is even more pronounced. The top fifth of Seattle's population receives 53% of income, while the bottom fifth receives just 2%, Seattle Times columnist Gene Bourque reported in September.
But when it comes to talking about ways to substantively address that inequality, such as through progressive revenues such as income taxes or increased investment in safety net programs, there is rarely political will.
However, several recent pilot programs to alleviate poverty have demonstrated how a stronger financial foundation can positively impact the lives of program participants and, in turn, create stronger social structures for everyone. It gave us a glimpse of what we could build.
One example Seattle Times reporter Alexandra Yun Hendricks wrote about last week involved King County's guaranteed income pilot project. The 10-month program, launched in 2022, gave people living in poverty $500 a month. Approximately 100 people participated, 88% of whom were people of color, and the average age was 40 years old.
The results report found that employment jumped from 37% to 66%, despite what naysayers often say is an unintended consequence of guaranteed income programs. For families with children, the percentage of participants with savings during the program increased from 0% to 42%. In the end, the number of people who said they were able to pay their bills “always or almost always” nearly doubled to 38%.
The King County pilot joins the Tacoma pilot in trials across the country, most notably a two-year program launched in Stockton, Calif., in 2019.
An evaluation of a randomized controlled trial of the $500-a-month Stockton program found benefits including lower income volatility for participants and a “significant increase” in their ability to handle $400 emergencies. . Researchers said the results in Stockton were complicated by the pandemic and the state's wildfires, which disrupted normal daily patterns of life.
As Yung Hendricks pointed out, opposition to guaranteed basic income or universal basic income, such as the $1,000-a-month program advocated by former presidential candidate Andrew Yang, comes from multiple sides.
A common objection is that the extra income will somehow deter people from working, or that the money will be used to buy drugs or alcohol. For example, neither of these scenarios played out in Stockton.
But there is also opposition from those who worry that a basic income guarantee would serve as an inadequate substitute for other, more impactful floor changes, such as higher wages, progressive taxation, and more affordable housing. voices are rising.
To be sure, scaling up a limited-time basic income program with 100 participants to a long-term, widespread one that can serve everyone living in poverty will not be easy. It is also unclear whether the benefits of basic income can be sustained over the long term.
It's easy to look at the cost of implementing a basic income program and conclude that the price is too high, but we also forget that what we are currently doing is not just expensive, it is destructive. must not be Researchers estimated in 2018 that the total annual cost of child poverty was 1.5% due to “lower economic productivity, higher health and crime costs, and increased costs as a result of child homelessness and abuse.” The researchers write that it amounts to $30 billion.
Even in the midst of the 2021 pandemic, we had some kind of national universal basic income. President Joe Biden signed an expansion of the child tax credit that allows parents to receive up to $3,600 per child per year, up from the $2,000 that raised the child poverty rate. As measured by supplementary poverty measures, it has plummeted to its lowest level on record, Box reported last year. This increased credit was not extended into 2022.
We cannot, on the one hand, complain that the costs of alleviating poverty and its many negative effects are too high, while, on the other hand, lament the negative effects that persistent poverty has on our societies. As Baldwin said, when so many people go hungry, we all suffer.
