In September 2020, the city of St. Paul, MN, launched a guaranteed income pilot championed by Mayor Melvin Carter—a member of the network, Mayors for a Guaranteed Income. The People’s Prosperity Pilot became fully operational in November 2020 and will provide up to 150 families with $500 per month in guaranteed income for an 18-month period. The program is intended to address economic hardships faced by families in the city. 

The city recruited families for the pilot program directly from participants in its CSA program, CollegeBound Saint Paul, which launched in January 2020. All the families participating in the pilot are at or below the federal poverty level, and more than 80% of the families identify as people of color. In addition to monthly payments, selected pilot families also receive a $10 bonus deposit into their children’s CollegeBound CSA.  The recurring monthly income payments have no strings attached and can be used for food, housing assistance or other resources at each family’s discretion. This financial relief helps lift some of the burden of meeting immediate needs, mitigates some of the economic fallout from the pandemic and may enable families to save in their children’s CSA.  

While the pilot is providing much-needed aid to families during the pandemic, the long-term goal of the program is to provide a model to inform a national conversation around guaranteed income legislation. "It is really intended to push on federal policy and state policy, in particular, to look at how does this become part of the tool kit within our social safety net,” according to Muneer Karcher-Ramos, director of the St. Paul Office of Financial Empowerment.  St. Paul is one of several cities that have launched similar programs, including Stockton, CA, which launched the first guaranteed income pilot in February 2019. The People’s Prosperity Pilot has distributed $350,000 since November, and the program is expected to cost the city $1.53 million, including funding through the federal CARES Act. 

As the city of St. Paul navigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the People’s Prosperity Pilot offers direct relief to CSA families who are balancing immediate financial concerns with their longer-term savings goals. The pilot places specific emphasis on providing support for low-income families of color to address economic inequities in St. Paul, while also ushering in a model for guaranteed income that could be replicated on the federal level. Click on these links to learn more about CollegeBound Saint Paul and the People’s Prosperity Pilot, and follow CollegeBound on social media for recent updates!