With over 7,000 state legislators and over 3,000 county governments currently, states and municipalities continue to be at the helm of driving economic stability forward for a multitude of communities and constituencies. As states and municipalities continue to navigate the onslaught of economic insecurity with inflation and cost-of-living steadily on the rise, it has paved the way for the implementation of more pilot programs that test innovative policy solutions.  

One policy solution that has risen to the forefront is guaranteed income, which is a policy providing recurring, unrestricted and unconditional cash payments to individuals. Unrestricted means that recipients can use the money however they think is best, rather than being restricted to certain uses as in most benefits programs. Unconditional means that recipients receive the funds without limitations, such as on employment status or criminal history, which historically has been an area of criteria that has eliminated financial support for formerly incarcerated individuals. Focusing on the core solution of addressing income inequality as a means to assisting efforts to close the racial wealth gap has been a selling point of the expanding interest in pilot programs across local levels of government, especially with the availability of COVID relief funds through CARES and ARPA that provided additional funding and allowed for many localities to implement pilot programs around housing, income stability, and overall neighborhood revitalization.  

With many programs being driven by additional local funding, newly emerging cities and counties joined the list of over 100 guaranteed income pilot programs available including Rochester, NY, Harris County, TX, Ann, Arbor, MI, Cambridge, MA, Los Angeles County, CA, and Fairfax County, VA. The payments distributed for most cities and counties have averaged $500-$1,000 per month, 100-350 residents, and 1-2 years of duration of payment. Many localities with implemented pilot programs have viewed this as an evaluative study to determine the best investments of innovative policy solutions that lead to more steady, economic mobility; however, critics have argued that pilot programs can present themselves as being a “band-aid” approach to addressing financial insecurity and the overall racial wealth gap in the U.S. With guaranteed income pilot programs still being in the early stages of implementation, it is difficult to lead with criticism of its effectiveness; but what can be determined is that guaranteed income is vital for addressing financial instability and immediate financial need; and should be included in a suite of policy solutions that also are responsive to the need for long-term wealth building programs such as Baby Bonds.  It also opens the floodgates of funding assistance programs to be enacted into legislation at the state level. 

 In 2023, states began more introduction of guaranteed income legislation including Senate Bill 603 in Oregon, which would have provided $1,000 a month to Oregonians with no or low incomes over a two-year period and House Bill 1045 in Washington, which would have provided 24 monthly payments to up to 7,500 qualifying participants in an amount equal to that of their residential rent payment. Although neither bill introduction moved forward towards enactment, they added perspective to the possibility of what state legislatures could support as it relates to providing a basic income program and how pilot programs could be the building blocks of long-term policy solutions. State legislation provides more funding access as well as support for larger groups of those in need. Developing more financial stability programs like guaranteed income will require states and localities to work in tandem to ensure the long-standing benefits of the policy. With more emphasis from a collective of elected officials such as Mayors and Counties for a Guaranteed Income, a network comprised of local elected officials representing cities and counties nationally, the future of guaranteed income looks like a bright spot to advance the momentum of economic mobility strategy and overall, potentially create more pipelines to wealth generation. States and localities have the opportunity to expand on more innovative policy solutions like guaranteed income and overall shift the future of the economic landscape with more bill introduction and enactment at the state level and moving from pilot programs to established policies.