Positive SEED results in Stockton are shaping national legislation

The Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration — SEED — was not a one-shot-and-done program.

Based on the methodological work and positive results in Stockton, 10 other guaranteed income pilots are working throughout the country while increasing national conversation, leading the way towards a more evidence-based legislation.

In conversations with The Record, former Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs, Dr. Stacia West and Dr. Amy Castro Baker — SEED program leaders — further discussed their results and what is developing across the nation.

“The city should be incredibly proud for being ground zero for something positive,” that the entire nation is looking at the work done in Stockton, said Tubbs.

It is “also important for the community to really reckon with this information,” Tubbs said about the SEED results. “The data is now informing national politics.”

In Stockton, $500 monthly stipends were disbursed to 125 recipients for a 24-month period ending this past February. The program was privately funded and participants were randomly selected.

The money was disbursed through pre-paid debit cards. Through the cards, 60% of the money spending was tracked and further categorized by merchant category codes depending on the stores participants spent the money at.

The other 40% of the money was tracked via interviews and surveys with participants. “We expected that because lots of people have bank accounts already,” West said. “So, what they did was they transferred the money from the card to their existing bank account.”

In some cases, people took it out as cash “to be able to get a money order to pay rent to their property manager,” she added. “So, we weren’t super surprised that 40% came off as cash.”

Castro Baker said that participants constantly shared they had had prior poor experiences with financial actors and wanted to keep the money safe. Something that also pushed people to cash the stipends off the debit cards was the early termination of the Ontario Basic Income pilot in Canada.

Participants knew they were part of a high-profile experiment — the first of its kind in the United States — which triggered some concerns among participants, wondering if SEED would end before the planned twoyear period, Castro Baker said.

However, SEED successfully ran its planned course even through the COVID-19 pandemic. Both West and Castro Baker expect to have a second batch of results by March 2022 that reflects how the program worked through the pandemic.

Before becoming academics, both West and Castro Baker were social workers. Their field background helped them both understand how to approach difficult-to-reach populations and partner with communities to conduct successful research through programs like SEED.

An interesting result in their report is that 69% of SEED participants were women. Castro Baker did not find that unusual. In a heterosexual couple, a man may list himself as the head of household on financial documents and not his wife.

However, “we know from years of research — and also with the experience in Stockton — is that when it comes down to the day-to-day management of finances, actually paying the bills, opening the mail, women tend to be the ones to do that more than men,” she said.

Because women made up more than half of the randomly selected participants, in terms of health care “people were patching holes” with the stipends, said Castro Baker.

Women perform “an extraordinary amount of unpaid labor that keeps the economy moving,” she said. Be it child care, or taking care of aging parents or family members with disabilities, the stipends helped cover “the amount of time that it costs to perform all that unpaid care work.”

Having the flexibility to pay for transportation costs, copays from doctors’ visits, even for adult diapers so a family would not have to stretch or limit their supply “gave women more breathing room” not just to take care of their families but themselves, too, said Castro Baker.