Guaranteed Income Program (United Way California Capital Region)

Guaranteed Income Program (United Way California Capital Region) is sponsored by United Way California Capital Region. This program provides guaranteed income to selected households to help with financial stability and poverty reduction.

Guaranteed Income - United Way California Capital Region Providing Guaranteed Income to help hardworking families achieve sustainable financial security and advancement Discover how unconditional monthly cash payments are helping families build stability and dignity across our region.

The History of UWCCR’s Guaranteed Income Program We are proud to be a part of the nationwide movement offering guaranteed income (GI) programs for community members at or below the poverty level, promoting economic security, helping residents remain housed and paying for necessities like food and childcare.

United Way California Capital Region launched the first GI program in the Sacramento area in June of 2021 providing 100 families in Sacramento County $300 of unconditional income every month, concluding in May 2023. The first of its kind in the Capital Region, our Guaranteed Income program promotes economic security, helps residents remain housed and pays for necessities like food and childcare.

Since then, UWCCR has launched three other GI programs including the second cohort with the City of Sacramento for 12 months starting in July 2023 that gave 80 City of Sacramento households $500 per month.

The third cohort was launched thanks to Sacramento County Supervisors Phil Serna (District 1) and Patrick Kennedy, Vice Chair (District 2) awarding an additional $500,000 each ($1 million total) in funding from its American Rescue Plan dollars and an additional generous donation from Sierra Health Foundation .

This cohort provided 130 new households with $500 in unconditional guaranteed income every month for one year with payments that began in January 2024. Finally, with college graduation rates for former foster youth hovering at 3%, our local Women United Group funded UWCCR’s first Collegiate Guaranteed Income Program in May 2024.

The program gives $500 per month to 10 former foster youth students that are attending college at Sacramento State. The program also helped connect the 10 students to additional resources like food, career development and more. United Way California Capital Region has partnered with Sacramento State University to review and evaluate data from our applicants and participants.

Data courtesy of Assistant Professor Ethan Evans & Research Team, Division of Social Work, College of Health & Human Services, Sacramento State. Learn How Guaranteed Income is Helping our Community This 1-year evaluation report comes from our second cohort partnered with City of Sacramento residents. Click here to view, download & print the report.

You can also download and review the Whitepaper which evaluates the data six-months after the 1-year evaluation report (or 18-months after the program began). How Guaranteed Helped Sacramento County Residents This 1-year evaluation report comes from our second cohort partnered with the County of Sacramento Districts 1 and 2 for our third program. Click here to view, download & print the report.

Please email us at UWGI@uwccr. org as this allows us to more effectively track and follow through with these requests. If you would like, you may also call us at (916) 368-3013 but please note that there might be a longer wait time in getting a response when calling the phone number.

We appreciate your patience ! Learn More About Guaranteed Income United Way invest in families to build financial security and stability. Initiatives like our Guaranteed Income program focus on using United Way’s access to financial capital to redress historical inequities in our region.

Rather than mandating social workers, conditional services or specific direction, the program creates an environment where families come together, empower themselves and are trusted to improve their lives in their own way. There is no time like the present for direct, unconditional and guaranteed investment in our communities.

After more than a year of social isolation, spiking unemployment and financial precarity, uncertainty persists in the form of expiring eviction moratoriums, ending enhanced unemployment insurance and persistent unemployment. Even before the pandemic, a majority of Americans could not afford an unexpected $400 expense in cash .

The Sacramento median rental apartment costs about double what would be affordable on an individual’s median income . Over the last half decade and through the pandemic, Sacramento has continued to see some of the highest increases in housing cost nationwide . According to a study by the United Ways of California , 29% of Sacramento County households make less than the “Real Cost Measure.

” Households in that range spend 2-4 times more of their income on housing than households above the Real Cost Measure. These sustained and growing problems are more than just byproducts of past recessions, but central features of an inequitable economic system. $300 every month will not end this inequity on its own.

It could, however, replace a part time job or gig. It could mean more time with children, with family, and with spouses. It could mean less stress or anxiety.

It does provide some measure of certainty and dignity to hardworking families. Brief History of Guaranteed Income Guaranteed Income has gained significant national attention in the last few years, but organized efforts to address growing economic inequality through guaranteed income have existed at least as far back as the 1960s Civil Rights movements.

During the formation of the National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO) in 1966, many of the Black women founders, including chairperson Johnnie Tillmon , called for a guaranteed income . The NWRO saw that conditional aid (e.g., benefits with work requirements) biased welfare systems against single parents, unemployed and working poor, childless couples and single adults.

Similarly, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called for a robust guaranteed income to bring all Americans to the median income in his 1967 book “Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? ” These calls, particularly those from the NWRO, were not simply pie-in-the-sky idealism, but rather a specific solution to address the growing gaps in a rapidly expanding welfare system.

Often, these gaps were explained away with the demonizing, racist logic of white supremacy and social darwinism. Today, policymakers, public commentators and economic “experts” too often use these logics to deride undervalued communities as deserving of the conditions of poverty and dismiss unconditional aid as a handout that discourages work. These conclusions have always had scant evidence.

As guaranteed income demonstrations continue to build evidence that unconditional, direct investments are a key component of building a more equitable and just economic system, it is worth remembering the origin of these ideas as key Civil Rights issues.