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Week Four Webinar

Building a Guaranteed Income Demonstration

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Testing Guaranteed Income as an Innovative Solution

To Economic Instability

City Solutions Sprint

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October 29, 2020

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  • Welcome & Housekeeping
  • Introduction to Speakers
  • Building a Guaranteed Income Demonstration
  • Discussion
  • Sprint Next Steps

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Agenda

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Housekeeping

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  • Please remain on Mute unless asked to share
  • If bandwidth allows, please consider sharing your video while speaking.
  • Update your name to read “First Name_City, State”
    • Click Participants
    • Select your name, then select “Rename”
  • In the chat box:
    • Share any questions you may have
  • All sessions will be recorded; shared with registered participants.

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Sprint Overview

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Introductions - Speaker

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Sukhi Samra

Director, Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration

Director of Mayors for a Guaranteed Income

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Sukhi Samra is the Director of the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration, the nation’s first mayor-led guaranteed income demonstration. She was previously a policy aide to Mayor Tubbs, playing a critical role in the launch of the Stockton Scholars, an ambitious college access initiative, and in publishing the inaugural Report on the Status of Women. Sukhi is originally from Fresno, CA and graduated from Stanford University as a member of Phi Beta Kappa.

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Building a Guaranteed Income Demonstration

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Background & Context

125 residents

$500 / month

24 months

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Guiding Ethos of Guaranteed Income Demonstrations

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  • Center recipient agency and consent
  • Rooted in and designed with equity lens
  • Must supplement, rather than replace, the existing social safety net

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Building a Guaranteed Income Demonstration

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  1. Community Engagement: Tool for building grassroots support and designing a program that is responsive to your community’s unique needs. Should be recurring through the entire demonstration, and can be a task force, working group, advisory boards, town halls, and resident roundtables.
  2. Fundraising: Use a mix of public & private dollars, attracting philanthropic dollars by amplifying lived experiences and positioning GI as a response to COVID-19.
  3. Finalize Demonstration Design
  4. Benefits Preservation
  5. Research Questions, Retention & Data Transparency
  6. Storytelling and Communication

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Key Design Considerations

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  • Demonstration Size & Duration
  • Selection Process and Criteria:
    • Recommend a randomized selection process: provides political cover and promotes sense of fairness when vast need is balance against limited resources.
    • Targeted universalism, or focus on a specific subset of your city’s population
  • Disbursement amount, method, and timing:
    • Disbursement mechanism must be as universally accessible as possible, especially for those who are under- and un-banked, while also collecting spending data. Options include prepaid debit cards, direct deposit, & Venmo/CashApp. MGI has partnered with FII to serve as the centralized distribution partner across the network.
    • SEED issues disbursement mid-month, based on community feedback that finances get tighter as the month goes on.

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Benefits Preservation

  • GI must supplement the existing social safety net. To mitigate loss of benefits:
  • Gift Classification: Disbursements must be from a nonprofit agency to recipients, issued with detached generosity, and fall under the annual IRS gift threshold.
  • Waivers: Pursue state waivers in partnership with your local Human Services Agency.
  • Hold Harmless Fund: Funds held to reimburse recipients for any expected & unexpected loss in benefits.
  • Benefits Counseling: Partner with a local nonprofit to provide 1:1, individualized benefits counseling during the recipient onboarding process.

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Benefits Preservation

*The following table is specific to Stockton, CA. Benefits structures are county specific, and we encourage you to engage in conversation with relevant stakeholders early.

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Benefit

What We Know

What We Recommend

CalWorks

No Risk: Protected via waiver secured by county HSA

Recipient encouraged to participate, assuming no other benefits concerns.

Social Security

No Risk: Eligibility Based on previous contributions

Recipient encouraged to participate, assuming no other benefits concerns.

Public Housing & Section 8 Vouchers

No Risk: Protected via Hold Harmless Fund in partnership with Housing Authority of San Joaquin

Recipient encouraged to participate, assuming no other benefits concerns.

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Medical

No to Low Risk: SEED disbursements cash transfers are gifts from a non-profit organization and therefore are not considered taxable income by the IRS, and so should not count against MediCal eligibility (determined by MAGI).

Recipient encouraged to participate, assuming no other benefits concerns.

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Benefits Preservation (cont.)

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Benefit

What We Know

What We Recommend

WIC

No to low risk: WIC eligibility is based off of income and/or participation in Medi-Cal, CalWorks, and CalFresh.

Recipient encouraged to participate, assuming no other benefits concerns.

Disability

Here, recipients will need to distinguish between:

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SSDI, no to low risk: Eligibility is based on previous contributions to Social Security and inability to work.

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SSI, impacted, with extremely high risk: Gifts count against eligibility.

Recipient does a cost-analysis of how much they will lose in SSI, and then makes a decision to (not) move forward.

SNAP/CalFresh

Impacted: The additional $500/month is considered unearned income, and will likely impact CalFresh eligibility. The decrease, however, would not be $1:$1 and the process for re-enrolling at the end of the study if the participant is eligible based on their earned income is straightforward and relatively fast (within 30 days).

  • Recipient does a cost-analysis of how much they will lose in SNAP with an additional $500/month, and then makes a decision to (not) move forward

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Research: Questions, Retention & Data Transparency

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  • Each MGI city will be evaluated by the CGIR
    • Compensation
    • 1:1 Contact
    • Maintain open communication
    • Release (spending) data along the way via a public-facing dashboard

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Storytelling & Communication

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  • GI demonstrations and all MGI cities must balance research and storytelling -- data alone does not change hearts and minds.
  • Storytelling cohort: a group of recipients who volunteer to speak to the media and share their experience publicly. These recipients are still participating in the research efforts.
  • Lessons learned from SEED:
    • Practice ongoing consent, allowing recipients to opt in or out of the storytelling cohort at any time
    • Balance longitudinal stories with one-time media hits; national media with local media

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Discussion

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Next Steps

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To Review

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Next Session(s)

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  • Optional Session: Thursday, November 4, 3-4PM ET
    • Opportunity for peer sharing and networking. If you’d like, this will be a time to share your ideas, ask questions of peers, and learn from fellow sprint participants.
  • Optional Office Hours: Tuesday, November 10, 3-4PM ET
    • Creating a Taskforce and/or Working Group
    • GI Research
    • Program/Demonstration Design
    • Federal Advocacy
  • Session 5: Pilots to Policy, Engaging with Federal Advocacy

Thursday, November 12, 3:00–4:00 p.m. ET

Add it to your calendar here.

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Thank you for attending the webinar.

Any questions?

Email CitySolutions@Results4America.org