A right-wing think tank is using its influence with Republican lawmakers to prohibit guaranteed income programs that provide no-strings cash to people with very low incomes, despite the broad popularity of such programs as a poverty reduction strategy. This advocacy is leading to conflicts between more progressive localities seeking to implement these programs and the GOP-dominated state legislatures that oppose them.
Just this year, bills to prohibit counties and cities from operating guaranteed income programs have been voted on in Arizona, Illinois, Mississippi, West Virginia and Wisconsin. In 2023, Arkansas was the first state to implement a ban on such programs, followed by South Dakota, Idaho and Iowa. Advocates for guaranteed income say these bans are part of a broader effort to prevent localities from implementing any policies to benefit poor people, and that if these preemptive bans succeed, cities and counties will lose an effective tool for combating poverty. The Florida-based Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA), which is spearheading efforts to ban the programs, has harnessed the same arguments that conservatives have used against other anti-poverty programs: that they discourage work and foster dependency.
The idea of a guaranteed income is not new, and has been supported by such advocates as Thomas Paine, Martin Luther King Jr. and Richard Nixon. Guaranteed income payments are usually not directly tied to poverty levels, and don’t come with restrictions on how the money is spent, which sets them apart from other social safety net programs. In the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, proposals to provide cash payments without conditions gained traction nationally when Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang proposed $1,000 monthly payments for all American adults. (Yang’s proposal to provide a universal basic income to all citizens regardless of their financial situation is distinct from a guaranteed income, which typically targets needy households.)
The first guaranteed income pilot program in a U.S. city in decades launched in 2019 in Stockton, California, which was suffering crippling poverty. The program gave randomly selected residents $500 per month for two years with no strings attached. A white paper analyzing its effect concluded that participants’ job prospects, financial stability and overall well-being had measurably improved. Then-Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs, who championed the program, is highlighting the program’s success in his current campaign to be California’s lieutenant governor.
A majority of American voters support some form of guaranteed income, according to recent polling from the Economic Security Project and Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, both advocates for the program. The Economic Security Project reported 56% support for the program, while Mayors for a Guaranteed Income reported in a separate survey that 64% of voters support it. In recent years, states from Maine to California have launched more than 150 guaranteed income pilot programs that target different populations, like single mothers in Birmingham, Alabama; Black women in rural Georgia; former foster youth in Los Angeles; and unhoused people in Denver. The pilot projects generally consist of cash payments, without strings, and the money is not considered taxable income.
FGA wants to kill publicly funded pilot programs and derail new ones, although the bills it pushes don’t touch privately funded programs. Right now nearly half of the 154 guaranteed income pilots in the U.S. are publicly funded or a mix of public and private funds, and the FGA is not shy about its determination to stop all pilots that it can. Its lobbying arm, the Opportunity Solutions Project, enlists right-wing state lawmakers in the cause of blocking local governments from implementing guaranteed income projects funded with taxpayer dollars.
“It’s laughable to say that $500 or $1,000 [per month] is enough for someone to suddenly just quit their job.”~ Shafeka Hashash, associate director of guaranteed income, Economic Security Project
The tactic FGA uses to block guaranteed income programs is known as “preemption,” a legal doctrine that allows a higher level of government to prohibit the actions of lower levels of government. FGA is explicit in wanting to ban universal basic income programs and guaranteed income programs.
Founded in 2011, FGA is backed by a roster of conservative donors. By 2022, its annual revenues had topped $14 million. Since 2014, FGA has received nearly $18 million from the Ed Uihlein Family Foundation, which is run by Richard and Liz Uihlein, who are also known for attacking transgender rights, supporting assault weapon ownership, promoting election denialism and financially backing the January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. FGA has also received $17 million from Donors Trust, a dark money-funded champion of climate denialism, environmental deregulation and attacks on collective bargaining rights.
FGA’s primary talking points are that guaranteed income are “socialist experiments” that trap Americans into dependency, trap states into expanding welfare and disincentivize work.
Shafeka Hashash, associate director of guaranteed income at the Economic Security Project, told Capital & Main that FGA’s claims, repeated in their model legislation and research, are untrue.
“It’s laughable to say that $500 or $1,000 [per month] is enough for someone to suddenly just quit their job,” Hashash said. “It’s the absolute opposite. What [guaranteed income] is actually doing is having that person not take that third lousy job, and instead move into one good quality job. [FGA is] trying to make people think that their fellow neighbors are the bad guys.”
Capital & Main reached out to FGA for comment but received no response.
In the past year, FGA has helped to pass bills in Arkansas, Idaho, South Dakota and Iowa, states with Republican supermajorities and Republican governors. But the forces against guaranteed income have run into opposition in Wisconsin and Arizona, where guaranteed income bans passed by Republican-dominated legislatures were vetoed by Democratic governors. In every case, a lobbyist from or aligned with the Opportunity Solutions Project has spoken in favor of the proposed ban.
In Arizona, Tim Puglisi, an associate fellow with FGA, testified in support of an anti-guaranteed income bill, echoing FGA’s talking points in saying that guaranteed income pilots will “weaken the workforce in Arizona, create more government dependency in Arizona, and cost taxpayers an exorbitant amount of money.”
“Republicans like local control only when they have the control.”~ Rodney Ellis, county commissioner, Harris County, Texas
Upon questioning by lawmakers about a guaranteed income program operating in Phoenix, Puglisi said there was “no data that he could find” on whether it was working as intended. Nevertheless, the bill passed both houses on a largely party-line vote. It was then vetoed by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs.
Arizona state Rep. Sarah Liguori, who fought against the ban, believes that, in pushing bills they know will be vetoed by Democratic governors, the anti-guaranteed income advocates are trying to “make a point with the Republican base, like ‘stopping socialism.’” That base is not large, Liguori suggests, because she knows of no lawmaker who voted for Arizona’s guaranteed income ban who is campaigning on the issue. “These [anti-guaranteed income] bills are being pushed through Republican legislatures, but they’re not something the public wants,” Liguori said.
According to Hashash, the advocates for guaranteed income bans are emblematic of outside interests undermining local efforts. They are “a perfect example of someone parachuting into a community where people on the ground had fought [for guaranteed income].”
Surprisingly, FGA and its lobbying arm have failed, at least legislatively, in blocking guaranteed income pilots in Texas, a state with a Republican supermajority. Attempts by lawmakers to pass preemptive anti-guaranteed income bills failed in 2021 and in 2022.
However, Texas anti-guaranteed income forces have had more luck in the courts. In January, state Sen. Paul Bettencourt wrote a letter to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, asking him to declare the enactment of guaranteed income programs in cities and counties unconstitutional. Paxton agreed, and in April he secured a stay from the Texas Supreme Court against the Harris County program, Uplift Harris. This pilot, which would have launched early this year in the county that’s home to Houston, received almost 80,000 applications for fewer than 2,000 slots but is now on hold.
Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis told Capital & Main that his colleagues are redesigning the Uplift Harris pilot program to address any issues the court might have before a final ruling is issued. But he also suggested there is more to the efforts against guaranteed income than how money is distributed.
“We have a target on our backs because [Harris] is a deep blue stronghold,” Ellis said. “Republicans like local control only when they have the control.”
Expensive legal battles like the one in Harris County can take its toll on mayors and county commissioners who want to implement guaranteed income programs, according to Sukhi Samra, the executive director of Mayors for a Guaranteed Income. “Our mayors are always ready to go to bat for their constituents. That said, [legal fights] can have a chilling effect for guaranteed income.”
