Guaranteed income pilot programs in St. Paul, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh and cities across America received a $15 million boost on Tuesday.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is donating $15 million to programs across the country, the Mayors for a Guaranteed Income group announced Tuesday. The more than two dozen mayors participating in the group, including St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter, will each receive a minimum of $500,000 to grow or sustain their programs. This builds on Dorsey’s initial $3 million donation last summer.
Carter, who launched a guaranteed income pilot program this fall, was one of a series of mayors who gave impassioned speeches in support of the concept at the virtual announcement.
“If we can leverage the power of city government to help more families make money work for them, we can unleash the creativity, unleash the potential of our entire community,” Carter said.
Other mayors joining Carter at the event included Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti.
In September, Carter signed an executive order establishing the People’s Prosperity Guaranteed Income Pilot, which will provide $500 monthly payments to 150 randomly selected families in four of the city’s lowest-income ZIP codes.
Carter joined the fledging mayors’ group, formed by Stockton, Calif., Mayor Michael Tubbs, earlier this year.
Carter said the pilot projects in St. Paul and around the country are already disproving “racist tropes” that “‘If you give those people money, here’s what they’d do with it.'”
“We’ve seen in Stockton, we’ve seen in St. Paul and we are seeing around the country that when low-income families have a little bit more money at the end of the month, they pay rent. They buy groceries. They get a car fixed up or get a bus card so they can get to work,” Carter said. “They do things that benefit our entire community.”
St. Paul’s $1.5 million pilot program is being paid for with federal CARES Act and philanthropic dollars. To qualify, families have to demonstrate financial hardship resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mayors said Tuesday that they are prepared to weather political backlash; Tubbs said it’s more galling that babies in the richest country in the world are sleeping in tents and cars.
“The biggest surprise to me is here we are 60 years into a war on poverty and the notion of investing directly into low-income families still feels strange and revolutionary,” Carter said.
“This is about a shift in how we value our resources and how we value our community members.”
The mayor’s group is partnering with the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy & Practice to establish the Center for Guaranteed Income Research to gather and analyze data and other information from the pilot projects.
For more information and updates about St. Paul’s guaranteed income pilot, visit stpaul.gov/prosperity.
Shannon Prather
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Yep, give the people a “guaranteed income” so they have no motivation to ever work again and of course, pay this “guaranteed income” on the back of the taxpayers / the workers. Oh, how nice and fuzzy.
Democrat party members and community organizers ONLY need apply to participate in this the latest Frankensteinian human experiment that would make the Auschwitz “Weisse Engle” (Angel of Death) proud. These social experimenters do to the human mind what he did to the human bodies. Mengele loved to experiment on making people all the same and focused on mostly twins as his subjects. Maybe Lampshades made of human skin and Anti Trump Tatoos will soon become the new rage for Xmas gift sent only by buddy Bezos Amazon?. Sounds like a reportable campaign finance donation to me disguised as Social justice….Follow the money. Do Republican run cities get an equal donation?
It used be that the only thing guaranteed was not income, but death and taxes. These fools have stepped it up to death of a country,,,,,,,,via Taxes and social experimentation that is contrary to all human instincts to rise above the primordial slime of mediocrity and social and economic stagnation.
Actually EVERYONE should quit working and just let Amazon, google, twitter, instagram, youtube, microsoft, apple, and all the media pay for everything. We’ll see how well that works out. Here’s a clue…. everyone will be dead but the ppl who work for them and their families…. This planet and its ppl deserve everything that is coming to them for allowing and enabling this thought and moral process to go on. You are about to reap what has been sown for decades now. If you don’t believe in God, you had better hope there is a God because the world is about to experience what hell on earth is about. Welcome to the new world order.
If Dorsey wants to give away his money to low income families. More power to him. When I see federal money being spent on this pipe dream that’s my money and I say hands off.
Like with public housing, IF PEOPLE DONT have to earn what they have, they have NO DESIRE TO ever take care of it.
He looks like he would be very comfortable hanging around a school yard .
Or a stand in for John Brown’s body,,,,,which lies a-mouldering in the grave. This over-achieving nerd obviously got sand kicked in his face by an Alpha male peer when young and vied to get even, and make all men evenly frail as he is. Those dulled eyes and slowed speech reveal drugs within the brain. Someone is pulling his strings which means perhaps he ,like Swalwell, needs a Chinese de-Fanging
you can not make this kind of stuff up every day our republic shrinks and it will not be long before it is gone.
AND alll these rich commucrat executives, will be the ONLY ONES sitting pretty.
So where does all the real money come from? That’s about $.05 each! I haven’t seen anything for that since Lifesavers or Gum.
I used to remember going into the local store, and finding lots of candy pieces, for 1 pence each.. THOSE DAYS are long gone.
I had to work and stay on my game to produce income. We were only as good as our last job.
Better watch out that these communist do not try to further these programs with infusion of taxpayer dollars.
I SAY EVERY leftist in favor of these “Universal incomes”, THEMSELVES BE FORCED TO LIVE ON JUST THAT ‘universal income ammount”, after SEEING ALL THEIR billions seized, and given away to the masses.
What a crock. Universal means everyone, and we all know that not everyone will receive it. San Francisco has already said that their UBI will only be for artists. This is only another scheme to buy votes with another welfare program, only with UBI, they won’t have to “qualify” for the benefit? So this leaves lots of questions: will the UBI payments be taxed? I know I paid income taxes on my unemployment benefits, something I actually worked for. Will UBI be included in “income” for calculating their “Earned Income Tax Credit”? Will it effect their eligibility for Medicaid or low income housing assistance? In a lot of ways, this will have a lot of unintended consequences just like the $15 an hour minimum wage which caused a lot of people to have a lower total income because the higher wage reduced their other benefits by more than the increase in their minimum wage.
This would be considered a gift, I believe, which means $6000 a year gift, which is not taxable.
it was just virtue signaling to his buddies: “look how great I am”
If he feels so strongly about guaranteeing income to the idle, he should start with his own employees, and the unemployed in his own town, and show us how well it will turn out. Using entirely his own money. Why stop at $15M?
And if he balks at usin more, DON’T give him the choice. SEIZE IT ALL, and give it away.. WHILE He has to watch!
Take some of that 15M and get a proper shave and haircut moron.