Guaranteed-income programmes can tackle inequality and build economic resilience,
says Michael Tubbs, mayor of Stockton, California
Poverty and economic insecurity are choices of policy, not individualsIN MARCH 2020 Tomas Vargas junior lost his job at a commercial airport because of
covid-19 and became one of 40m Americans who applied for pandemic unemployment
assistance. The money didn’t arrive for weeks, but Tomas was able to fall back on the
guaranteed income of $500 a month that he’d been receiving since February 2019, as
part of an experimental programme I’ve been piloting in Stockton, California. He spent
this unconditional cash on rent, food and bills. Building on this income floor, he gave
back to his community, providing free car-repair services to essential workers and
donating supplies to the local fire station.
Though Tomas’s experience is specific to a once-in-a-generation pandemic, a sudden job
loss for any other reason could also have forced him, and a majority of Americans, into
eviction, food-bank lines, and crippling debt. Covid-19 has simply laid bare what has
always been true: people are working, but the economy isn’t. Economic insecurity in
America is widespread, and structural racism has maintained racial wealth and income
disparities that make it impossible for people to thrive. Tomas’s story is one example of
how an income floor can build economic resilience.
All of our neighbours are worthy of an economic floor, particularly because emergencies
and economic disruption have become the norm. It might be a pandemic today, but it
could be a hurricane or fire tomorrow. In the wealthiest country in the world, it is
uncivilised for people to be contributing to the economy and their communities and still
fall below the poverty line. There is nothing inherently dignified in working two or three
jobs, yet still being unable to afford the basics; or to be deemed an “essential worker”,
but not be entitled to hazard pay, union protection, health insurance or personal
protective equipment.
In the 1930s, the last American economic crisis of this scale was met by drastic social
reform that brought about significant protection for workers, including the right to
unionise and unemployment insurance. But in 2020 we need more. Unemployment
insurance is necessary but insufficient, and even full-time employment does not mean
economic security anymore. We need a social safety-net that goes beyond conditional
benefits tied to employment, that works for everyone and begins to address the call for
racial and economic justice.
In 2021 we will change course and build an economy that recognises the universal
dignity of all people through a guaranteed income. Rooted in Martin Luther King’s
economic dream, a guaranteed income—in the form of a monthly cash payment given
directly to individuals—embodies government at its best, trusting our constituents and
giving them the agency to make the right decisions for themselves and their families.
The Stockton guaranteed-income programme, which started in February 2019, gives
125 residents $500 a month for 24 months. I trusted that recipients would spend the
cash as they needed for themselves and their families, and that’s exactly what the data
have shown—40% of all spending has been on food, 25% on sales and merchandise, 11%