Donation extends guaranteed income program
Nonprofit receives $1 million gift to help low-income households
Just as money seemed to have run out for a program that distributed guaranteed income to hundreds of Oakland households, an anonymous $1 million donation will keep the cash flowing for six more months.
Leaders of the local nonprofit UpTogether, which administers the program, said the donation is a lifeline for 300 Oaklanders who since 2021 have received $500 a month, no strings attached, to meet their basic needs.
The idea of giving direct cash payments to very-low-income residents has picked up momentum around the country, and UpTogether believes it's the best way to reverse decades of racist redlining policies that kept Black residents and other communities of color from generating wealth.
The anonymous benefactor — who gave the money to the San Francisco Foundation, a partner of UpTogether — has bought the guaranteed income program some time, likely until June. So far, it has been kept afloat entirely by donations, but the nonprofit's leaders acknowledge the project can't be permanently sustained by philanthropy alone.
“There has to be a policy measure from the government to help support the longevity of this work,” said Jesús Gerena, CEO of UpTogether.
The program, Oakland Families Together, began enrolling recipients in June 2021, with officials initially specifying that it was intended for people of color, before tweaking its guidelines later that year to invite all lowincome residents.
It received enthusiastic support from then-Mayor Libby Schaaf, who described it as the “most transformative policy” to close the racial wealth gap in Oakland and elsewhere.
Schaaf, known to prioritize fundraising efforts, led a donation drive to fund $500-per-month payments to 300 additional residents — a second phase of the program that began in January 2022 and also is expected to conclude in June.
The drive raised $6.7 million in private donations, 80% of which went directly to the program's recipients and the rest to research and operational costs.
“We believe poverty is not personal failure; it is a policy failure,” Schaaf said when the program launched.
UpTogether has yet to establish a relationship with newly elected Mayor Sheng Thao, though Gerena noted doing so is a top priority to ensure the income program has the city's continued support.
“Mayor Thao is a supporter of guaranteed income, and we are looking at ways to continue to support that in Oakland, including a newly proposed program by Alameda County focused on former foster youth. We look forward to talking to UpTogether further,” said Julie Edwards, a communications consultant for the mayor's office. “In general, Mayor Thao supports public-private partnerships to help advance shared goals of supporting vulnerable members of our community.”
Ultimately, UpTogether is counting on a long-term basic income plan to be rolled out by President Joe Biden's administration, which in 2021 gave COVID-19-era tax credits of $550 per month that “lifted millions of kids out of poverty overnight,” Gerena said.
The monthly tax credits came to an end in 2021, however, when Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia voted against Biden's social spending package, citing fears that it would reduce incentives to work and worsen economic inflation.
Biden then proposed extending the credits in his Build Back Better agenda, but Congress ultimately excluded them from the plan the president signed into law.
The program's supporters have little patience for the notion espoused by critics of guaranteed income programs that free money discourages people from pursuing jobs or contributes to inflation, saying the latter is a result of corporate greed rather than supporting low-income Black and Brown residents.
Studies show that people often fluctuate in and out of poverty, losing out on public services each time they rise above a certain income level and no longer qualify.
“If you benefit from the social safety net, as you do better you get less,” Gerena said. “There's no, `Hey, you're doing great, let me invest in you.' All these damaging policies are built on negative and racist stereotypes of the poor.”
UpTogether, formerly named Family Independence Initiative, has been around over two decades in Oakland. As the story goes, the nonprofit's founders felt defeated by hamster wheel social services and began looking for ways to put money directly in Oaklanders' pockets.
Elsewhere, the once-radical concept of guaranteed income — famously a demand of the Black Panther Party in the 1960s — has entered mainstream politics.
Universal basic income intended for every U.S. resident was the bedrock of politician Andrew Yang's outsider run for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.
Former Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs made national headlines in 2019 when he set out to give 125 city residents $500 a month for two years. The program was studied by researchers who found it benefited families' health and led more people to secure full-time employment. Tubbs, who lost reelection in 2020, now serves as a special adviser to Gov. Gavin Newsom for economic mobility and opportunity.
Last year, California rolled out an earned income tax credit worth several hundred dollars for adults who make less than $30,000 a year, with the highest credit totaling $3,400 for those with three or more dependents.
Guaranteed income programs have been proposed in San Francisco, Detroit, New Orleans and Los Angeles, and officials in San Mateo County began exploring the idea last month.
“Guaranteed income gives people freedom to go after opportunities and build financial stability,” Alisha Roe, an Oakland resident who received money through the UpTogether program, wrote in an op-ed published last year on the digital news website Next City.
“Over and over again, the pilots show that when you invest in someone, they'll show you they can move up in life,” Roe added.