Tacoma's Guaranteed Income Pilot Yields Positive Results

Mayors for a Guaranteed Income

The American Guaranteed Income Studies: Tacoma, WA | University of Pennsylvania Center for Guaranteed Income Research

University of Pennsylvania Center for Guaranteed Income Research

Growing Resilience in Tacoma (GRIT) | Guaranteed Income Pilots Dashboard

Growing Resilience In Tacoma (GRIT) - a guaranteed income demonstration | United Way of Pierce County

“How Tacoma’s yearlong guaranteed income experiment fared” by Alexandra Yoon-Hendricks from The Seattle Times

“GRIT Initiative Continues” from Tacoma City Council

GRIT 2.0: Guaranteed Income Project | United Way of Pierce County

“Guaranteed income returned to Pierce County this week. Why free money deserves a shot” by The News Tribune Editorial Board

“New Poll Reveals Overwhelming Support for Guaranteed Income” from Yahoo! Finance

[00:00:00] Crystal Fincher: Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher, and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington state through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening, and what you can do about it. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review show and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, the most helpful thing you can do is leave a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes.

Today on Hacks & Wonks, we're diving into a transformative approach to addressing poverty and economic inequality that's showing promising results right here in Washington state. In late 2021, the City of Tacoma and the United Way of Pierce County launched Growing Resilience in Tacoma or GRIT - a guaranteed income pilot program with a stated commitment to dismantle poverty, promote economic opportunity, and improve and increase equity in the social safety net. GRIT was built on four guiding principles. One, invest in Asset Limited, Income Constrained and Employed - also referred to as ALICE - families who disproportionately identify as Black, Indigenous and other people of color and face inequitable financial struggles. Number two, cultivate resilience and financially empower participants. Three, promote narrative change by highlighting the structural failures that lead to poverty, rather than perpetuating the myth of individual shortcomings. And four, build support for GI - guaranteed income - and other strength based policies to create a more equitable social safety net. The first phase of GRIT provided 110 families with $500 in monthly unconditional cash payments for one year. The results are in and published in a report by the University of Pennsylvania Center for Guaranteed Income Research, and they offer compelling evidence about the power of guaranteed income to stabilize families, reduce financial volatility, and foster hope and resilience. Building on the success of the pilot. GRIT entered a second phase in March 2024. Thanks to a $1.9 million proviso secured in the state budget, GRIT 2.0 expanded to reach 175 families in Tacoma and unincorporated Pierce County. Like the initial program, these families receive $500 monthly payments for 12 months, enabling further research on the impact of guaranteed income. Both phases of GRIT specifically targeted Asset Limited, Income Constrained but Employed or ALICE families - working families who often juggle multiple jobs but still struggle to meet basic needs. The first phase focused on families in four high-need Tacoma zip codes, where 40% of households fall into this category, while GRIT 2.0 expanded to include outer zip codes and unincorporated areas.

The timing couldn't be more critical. Across the Puget Sound region, families face rising housing costs, persistent inflation, and wages that aren't keeping pace with the cost of living. In Tacoma, where the median household income is $11,000 below the state average, many working families find themselves in an impossible situation - earning too much to qualify for traditional safety net programs, but not enough to achieve financial stability. GRIT is part of a national movement for guaranteed income, led by the Mayors for a Guaranteed Income coalition, founded by former Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs in 2020. Starting with 11 founding mayors, including Tacoma's Mayor Victoria Woodards, the coalition has grown to include over 170 mayors across 29 states - distributing $350 million in direct cash assistance. These programs are rigorously evaluated, providing data and insights to support policy and advocacy at state and federal levels. Joining us today are three leaders at the forefront of this transformative work. Sukhi Samra, Executive Director of Mayors for a Guaranteed Income. Tacoma Mayor Victoria Woodards, a founding mayor of the coalition. And Dona Ponepinto, President of United Way of Pierce County. Together, we'll explore the program's results, its impact on participants' lives, and the broader implications for economic equity and resilience. This conversation comes at a pivotal moment as Washington state legislators consider expanding guaranteed income programs statewide and as communities grapple with how to create an equitable and resilient economy for all. The lessons from Tacoma's leadership are invaluable. Let's dive in.

Well, today I am absolutely thrilled to be talking about the issue of guaranteed income. Thank you all for joining us today.

[00:05:09] Mayor Victoria Woodards: Thanks for having us, Crystal.

[00:05:11] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Well, I want to start off just introducing what guaranteed income is and what brought the Mayors for a Guaranteed Income coalition together. Can you share that with us, Sukhi?

[00:05:26] Sukhi Samra: Sure thing. Hi Crystal - thanks for having us here today - I'm excited to dig into this conversation. And to start, a guaranteed income is a recurring cash payment that's given regularly to folks, usually on a monthly basis, and is meant to provide a floor upon which folks can build. In most of our pilots, we've seen it at about $500 to $1,000 a month. Mayors for a Guaranteed Income launched in June 2020 with a coalition of 11 founding members, including Tacoma's own Mayor Woodards, to advocate for direct cash as a way to build a more resilient and just country - and a country in which working-class Americans aren't working two or three jobs to still struggle to afford the basics. Our coalition has three mandates. The first is to launch pilots like the one in Tacoma and the one that you'll hear about today to provide data and stories about how guaranteed income works. The second is to invest in narrative change work because we know that to get to a more equitable economy, we'll need to change hearts and minds and not just share data. And the third is to advocate for policy change at the state and federal level. Since we launched in 2020, our coalition has grown from 11 mayors to about 170 across 29 states. We also have a county affiliate of which newly-elected Executive Ryan Mello is a part of. And altogether, our coalition has launched about 70 guaranteed income pilots across the country that have distributed $350 million in direct relief to everyday Americans.

[00:06:54] Crystal Fincher: Now, this kind of relief is different than we're often used to seeing, here in America and in Washington state and Tacoma. We're used to very targeted non-cash assistance and interventions where we might provide you help with finding a job, we might give you vouchers for a grocery store, we might give you conditions that you have to meet to receive other assistance, or provide assistance directly to a landlord in terms of rent subsidies. This is direct cash. What brought about this change in focus, and what are the benefits offered or reasons behind moving towards just giving people direct cash and letting them decide what they need to spend it on?

[00:07:41] Mayor Victoria Woodards: Well, I'll start - this is Victoria - just start by saying, I think this whole movement got started - I should say once again, because this was something that Dr. Martin Luther King talked about in the 60s. So this is not a new idea, but I really want to give credit where credit is due, and that goes to former Mayor Michael Tubbs, who was then the mayor of Stockton, California. And this is something that Michael truly believed in, that Mayor Tubbs truly believed in. And so he raised the money and did a pilot in his own city. And after seeing the success of what happened in his own city, he really dreamed of this being a national program. And so he called up some of his great mayor friends - I'm one of them - and the other 10 who decided to be founding mayors. So I just, I want to be super clear that it was his vision that got us to where we are today.

What is different - as Crystal, you did a great job of outlining - is that this is cash available, and I'll say that in each community, in each pilot, there really is a different set of qualifications or characteristics of the type of people that each community wants to help. So if you take Tacoma for instance, we wanted to focus on a group that the United Way of Pierce County and United Ways across the country call ALICE, which means Asset Limited, Income Constrained, and Employed. And what that means is that these are people who get up every single day - working one, two, sometimes three jobs trying to support their families, but they're just not making enough to lift themselves out of poverty. And so we focused on that group here in Tacoma, but we also focused on four zip codes in Tacoma where we know we have the highest population of ALICE families. And in the four zip codes that we chose - in each one of those zip codes - 40% of those households identified as ALICE. And we targeted single head of households or one-income head of households with children, because each of these initiatives actually being a pilot program in each city - different cities did different things just to more completely understand who could benefit the most and how people benefit from it. And so we chose that group and ended up with 110 families that we focused on here in Tacoma. And so I think the success of it that we'll get into really came out of the fact that it is a cash payment that is not tied to anything you have to do or should do, but that you as an adult taking care of your family can decide how to invest that money and how to use that money to support your family.

[00:10:20] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. And it's so interesting because we hear that case made so often in different contexts - whether it's cities advocating for their own budgets, corporations advocating for their autonomy and ability to conduct their own business in the way that they understand. I think there's a lot of understanding that while people may be in generally similar situations facing poverty, there could be a lot of different reasons for that, a lot of different circumstances. And so one-size-fits-all type of interventions may not be the most appropriate. Dona, as you found your way into this coalition, into these projects, what did you see as the driving factors for moving forward with these pilots and the benefits that you saw it could present within the community?

[00:11:13] Dona Ponepinto: Well, for our United Way, we have been on this journey of poverty reduction and how do you help ALICE families in our community move from a place of crisis to self-sufficiency? So when the mayor reached out and asked if we were interested - I think before she was even done, I had said yes to doing this because we believe that these families need to have some type of additional support so that they don't fall off a cliff. ALICE families are always teetering on the edge. They're 100% above the federal poverty level, but 200% below poverty level. So they're in that in-between area where they're just - like the mayor said - they're just not making enough to make ends meet. And so, what attracted me and our United Way to this - my board was all in - is that this is a supplement. It's not meant to replace someone getting up and working. In fact, most ALICE households are getting up every day and working more than one job. And in some instances, this additional $500 a month that they received made them maybe cut back on one of those two or three jobs that they already have. But knowing that this is not a replacement for work - that it's a supplement, that it is creating this financial floor for families and giving them that opportunity to actually achieve whatever their hopes and dreams are. We're all about investing - our United Way - in programs and initiatives that focus on wealth building. And so many of these families are really working hard to do that, but what happens in many instances is that they're meeting a cliff - a benefits cliff. So many ALICE families may be on food assistance, they may be getting childcare subsidies - but if they make $1 more, they're going to lose that childcare. They make $1 more, their food assistance benefits are going to be cut. So we're also in this lane of advocating - as Sukhi talked about, this really is about how do we gather enough research and data, which I think for all of us, we believe that there's plenty already out there. But we continue to do the research to really be able to show how these programs are helpful to families. And actually, it's an economic imperative as far as I'm concerned - $6,000 a year is going right back into our economy. So that's why United Way said - Yes, we need to do this and we need to look at how we can make it happen, not only in Pierce County, but the state and add to what's happening nationally.

[00:13:51] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Now, before we dive into the specifics of this pilot program in Tacoma - Sukhi, I just want to talk about this shift in focus a little bit. A lot of times when we explore poverty - in just kind of layman conversations - poverty is often presented as a result of bad decisions, a moral failure, if people just understood more and knew more and could make better decisions. But there's a large and ever-growing body of research and data that actually seems to suggest that poverty is a financial problem. It's simply, at its root, a lack of funds. That isn't because someone isn't intelligent, isn't industrious or hardworking, is just fine morally and ethically. But for a variety of reasons that more and more people are facing, it is just hard to earn enough to make ends meet. Is that what this is kind of based on and looking at - Hey, this is really a root of people just not having enough money, so what happens if we help that specific problem?

[00:15:00] Sukhi Samra: Yeah, Crystal, exactly as you said - we believe that poverty is a lack of cash, not a lack of character. That it's a systemic failure, not a personal one. We know in this country that income inequality is rising, wealth inequality is rising, wages have stagnated while at the same time corporate profits have increased. And we saw that anxiety at the election a couple weeks ago - we know that folks are really feeling the pressures of inflation. We know they're feeling the pressures of rising costs of everything - from eggs to rent to everything - and so really wanting to position guaranteed income as a solution that helps ease some of that burden that folks are feeling. Because as you said, poverty is not a personal failure - it's a policy failure.

[00:15:41] Crystal Fincher: So Mayor Woodards, as you look to design and deploy this in Tacoma, what were your considerations? What were questions that you faced from partners in the community? And how did you go about implementing this?

[00:15:55] Mayor Victoria Woodards: So I explained just a little bit earlier what we used as our guidelines of who we wanted to help. But I will tell you that, of course, we received pushback - and I think Dona can share a little bit about some pushback that United Way received as the administrating partner of the project. But a lot of the pushback or the things I heard is - Well, if you give people $500 a month, they're going to use it to take lavish vacations or eat at lavish restaurants, or they're going to use it to buy big screen TVs. And just this idea that people who live in poverty make poor choices - again, kind of getting back to what Sukhi said and what you shared, it really - it is not a personal failure. It is a systems failure. And these are people who work hard every day. And so giving them the autonomy to make the decision - because they know what's best - so that was how we pushed back on it. But I think the greatest pushback came at the end, and now, when we heard the anecdotal stories about how this cash actually changed someone's life. And how - we'll talk about - even the real data shows the effects of what these cash payments have done.

But I will tell you - just anecdotally - some of the stories that we heard at the end of the pilot was a woman who has been one of our really great storytellers talked about the fact that it came right during COVID. And she and her son and her grandson all live together, and her son is autistic. So the question was - who's going to be able to stay home with the grandson and make sure that he's still getting through school? And so the grandmother was able to do that. But also in the midst of that, they were able to pay off bills and increase their credit score so that they could buy a house. And I saw this woman yesterday - telling me that they are in a position and next year they will be purchasing a home. And so it's stories like that that help overcome some of that pushback of what people have said, and probably in some instances will continue to say. And I think that what's great is that, especially being part of Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, is that that story didn't just happen in Stockton. That story didn't just happen in Tacoma. That story happened in all of the cities where there was a guaranteed income pilot, whether that was St. Paul, Minnesota or Jackson, Mississippi. People have actual stories about how people were able to help lift themselves out of poverty. We even have stories about people who had an opportunity because they could breathe for a moment - they could think about their future. We had one person who - because he could do that - took the opportunity when he went to work to take some courses online and actually get more certificates. So by the time he no longer was receiving the guaranteed income, he actually had replaced the guaranteed income by being able to get these certificates and make more money at his current. job. So it's stories like that that really tell the truth about what guaranteed income does, and not just the ideas of what people have about people who live in poverty.

[00:19:02] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. Dona, what attitudes, misconceptions, ideas did you encounter throughout this project? And did you see any minds change or surprising experiences from the participants and from the community?

[00:19:20] Dona Ponepinto: Number one, my board was very much in support of this - so it helps when your board is behind you, when you're going to do something of this magnitude that has potential to maybe do some harm. Not to the people receiving it, but you don't want to harm the organization, right? But I really felt, and my board really felt, that if we're serious about focusing on these ALICE families and moving families out of poverty, this is one of the tools to be able to do that. So some of the pushback just overall, because we were the administrators - we helped in the development of the planning and the implementation - I think just many people felt that we were giving individuals money for free, which is why we were very intentional about using ALICE to start. Because ALICE families - you had to be working, you had to have children in the home. And I think for some people that really did help them to understand - Okay, this is a pilot, they're testing it out. I always used to say we're part of a national research effort, and we're gathering information to see the efficacy of cash assistance programs throughout the country. That helped quite a bit because a lot of people were like - Well, let's wait and see what the data says. So I'm thrilled that we finally have the report and we're going to be able to share all of that information because it's the stories that really, I think, help. As a United Way, we do a lot of things around convening people, bringing people together, but we also need donors. So has this impacted some of the donors that have given to us in the past? And I'll be honest in saying - yes, it has. But at the same time, it's brought new donors. There are people that are really excited about this. I've been actually very pleasantly surprised at donors that have been very excited about guaranteed income and wanting to see what they can do. And in fact, we have a donor that gave us an additional - I think it was $100,000 - to add additional families to this second round, that we're in, of giving cash assistance to individuals.

So what we're hearing from the clients - really just to add to what the mayor was saying - is that it really just gave them time to just pause, time to do things with their families. That was another big thing that we saw - when you're working a couple of jobs, you don't have a whole lot of time to spend with your kids. And this gave them an opportunity to spend time with their children, time to look for a better job and so forth. But it also - and this came out in the report - it made people more hopeful. They knew it was going to end so that they could do some things while they had this $500 a month for - in the first phase, for 13 months - but it gave them the opportunity to plan and to look ahead. And so that was very hopeful for many of them. We heard that a lot, and we saw that a lot in the report.

[00:22:20] Crystal Fincher: Absolutely. There are so many life-changing experiences that have happened because of this, some really touching stories that individual families have talked about and have experienced. And this is also, as you said, part of a real comprehensive research effort to really quantify, study, and explore the broad implications and effects of this. And so in this Tacoma pilot, there was a treatment group and a control group. And comparisons made between the two, to get at if - are some of the ideas that we have about what might result accurate? Are they not? What do we learn? What are the new things? So what are the broad findings that you found? And can you overview what the treatment and control groups looked like and what those key findings were?

[00:23:11] Dona Ponepinto: So there was 110 individuals in the treatment group - the recipients that received the $500 a month - and there was 132 individuals that were in the control group. We had about 2,500 overall applications, so that's what told us there's a need out there in our community. The research was all done by the University of Pennsylvania Center for Guaranteed Income Research - so very academic, research-oriented. And so they did all the randomization - it was randomized control group, randomized treatment group. And the key findings - and I'll start off and then I'll turn it over to the mayor - in terms of just financial resilience, one of the things that we saw is that there were significant improvements in financial stability, a reduction in income volatility, a increase in stable full-time employment. And for me, that was really positive to see because - people need cash, and this gave them an opportunity to upskill, to get additional trainings. Less food insecurity - and we can talk about that a little bit later because food insecurity is a huge problem, just still a problem. And then reduced housing burden. Some of the specifics around the financial piece of it is recipients exhibited significantly higher mean income than people in the control group, which was sustained six months after the program. And then again, they experienced less income volatility - you would hope to see that, and I'm glad we did see that throughout the findings. Recipients also exhibited significant improvements in financial resilience, particularly in their ability to manage a $400 emergency. Savings is a big deal, and we know so many Americans don't have enough in their savings to cover any kind of an emergency. The control group experienced a reduction in financial resilience during the same period. And also, too, we have to keep in mind that this was during COVID. So the first payment went out in December of 2021. So we were still - it was still there, it was still impacting families. And so the control group - one of the things that we saw with regards to savings is that the control group had higher savings than the recipient group, the treatment group at the beginning of this. But at the end of the program, it was the control group - which makes sense - they had fewer savings and the treatment group increased their savings. And have to make some assumptions that that was because of COVID and having to use more of their savings to get by. So I'll turn it over to the mayor - we really highlighted four different areas - the financial, the employment, food security and housing.

[00:25:56] Mayor Victoria Woodards: Thanks, Dona. And I'll just give you some data around what we learned in the employment piece of it. So recipients went from 57% being employed full-time to 66% of the recipients working full-time six months after the payments stopped. So this whole idea that people are going to quit their jobs for a cash assistance payment - this proves that actually more people went to work when it was done. We also learned that the data demonstrated stability of full-time employment among recipients over time was at 63%, but in the control group was only 52%. So again, an 11-point lift to people who just received a mere $6,000. We are not talking about $60,000 or $6 million. $6,000. And so I think the data really shows what we already know. And I'll give you a story that we heard from a recipient, who had his handyman business. And he was able to buy better tools - to put more investment into his business - which led to more jobs and a greater sense of stability for him. But there is something that data can't always measure. And so these were his words, but that sense of stability, paired with the steady payments from GRIT - gave him the confidence. It made him feel better about himself and what he was doing in life to rebuild and reinvest in his relationship with his children. So the fact that he could now care for his children in a way that made him more comfortable as a father caused him to re-engage and reinvest in his relationship with his kids. Where else does that happen? Where else does that happen?

And then as it relates to housing - affordability and quality housing - we know that recipients consistently displayed a reduced cost burden compared to those in the control group. The other part of that was that a greater portion of recipients have the opportunity to transition into higher quality homes or more desirable neighborhoods compared to the control group. So another perfect example, especially - and this is really important as we think about what's happening across the country - housing affordability is an issue in every city. And $500 can be the difference between being able to pay your rent or your mortgage and ending up in a shelter. But even in some of these cases, there was a young woman who got to actually - within three months of getting the cash payments - was able to move to a safer place. Because prior to that, she couldn't do that. And this woman had actually been attacked twice in front of her old apartment. So if you can imagine the fear of going in and out, of leaving her house, the confidence of knowing that she would be safe, and now then being able to move to a place where she felt safer - so what does that mean? She gets out more often. She improves her mental health. Potentially, she finds a better job. So this cash assistance, again, doesn't just help out in one area. It really can change the lives and the trajectory of people in our community who live either in poverty or just on the line of poverty.

[00:29:26] Crystal Fincher: I did find it striking that - $500 to a lot of people, especially those who are not living in poverty, seems like, Well, that's not that much. How much of a difference can that really make? And my goodness, the difference that it made in so many of the lives of the recipients was - can they live in a place where they feel their kids are safe? Can they afford to gather the skills to go back to work and increase their earning potential? Are they able to have a more secure place for their kids? Can they spend more time with their kids? Which is so huge - I think a lot of times we underestimate just how precious and how much of a luxury just time is.

[00:30:11] Mayor Victoria Woodards: Crystal, if I could - you bring me to just want to share one more thing. I was talking about Geno earlier who had the opportunity to take some classes at work and be able to upskill in his own job. Geno also happened to be a single father with three teenage boys. And one of his sons was doing poorly in school, so every night at dinner - that was the issue. They sat down on the table, it became an argument. Nobody wanted to sit down at the dinner table. He also used some of his money to get his son a tutor, so his son's grades improved. So when they sat down at the table, there wasn't an argument. They liked to come to the table now and discuss their day because there wasn't this looming thing over everybody's head about - Oh God, he's going to ask about grades. But the other thing Geno did, and the things that we often take for granted - how many of us think about, You know, I want to take my kids to a movie. I want to take my kids roller skating. I want to do something with my family. And then you just go do it. Geno, for the first time, got to take his kids roller skating. And while that seems so insignificant - in the dynamics of a family, that can be so powerful and so impactful. And so sometimes when I say that, somebody will say - He used the money to take his kids skating? But people have - as you just said, Crystal - the thought that people just get more time to spend with their family. Or there's another person who said - I had an opportunity to quit my second job and put more focus onto my family, but then also upskill and make more money. So it just - obviously you could tell I'm a big cheerleader and I really believe what it does for families - but the simple things in life that some of us so often take for granted can have a big impact.

[00:31:52] Crystal Fincher: It truly does. And as we talked about, these pilots have happened in so many communities across the country. Sukhi, how have the findings from GRIT in Tacoma compared with what you've seen nationally?

[00:32:08] Sukhi Samra: What we saw in Tacoma is similar to what we're seeing nationwide, which is that when you give people money, it works. When you give people money, they work more. And above all, when you invest in a recipient, you're unlocking a world of potential for them, for their children, and their community. Over and over again - whether it's St. Paul, Minnesota, or Tacoma, or Stockton, California, or Patterson, New Jersey - we see that guaranteed income leads to more employment, it leads to less stress and anxiety for the recipient, it leads to better housing outcomes, less food insecurity that folks are facing. So really, again, what we're seeing in Tacoma is what we've seen elsewhere as well. And we're really excited that we have this body of evidence from a multitude of cities that shows over and over again that guaranteed income works.

[00:32:56] Crystal Fincher: And how have you seen the reaction nationally? Just from a layman's perspective, I've seen a lot of people who have read about many of the pilot programs become very excited about the possibility of this. I've seen people in policy circles excited about it - a lot of times because it's so straightforward - the cost of implementation is so much lower than standing up entire departments and administrations to means test and determine and distribute the assistance. And also, some continued skepticism from people who aren't sure that people will just take advantage of the money, or they don't have to earn the money, or no one's checking up to make sure that it's really being spent on the right kinds of things and not frivolous things. What kinds of reactions have you seen nationally?

[00:33:48] Sukhi Samra: We're really excited that because of the leadership of folks like Mayor Woodards and Dona, we've been able to grow guaranteed income from a single movement in Stockton, California with Mayor Tubbs to this nationwide movement of mayors and county officials, state legislators, et cetera. We're really excited about cash because it's a simple way to respond to folks' urgent and most pressing needs. And we've seen that the work that we've done has not only shifted the policy, but it's also shifted public opinion. In a poll that we did at the end of 2023, we saw actually that a bipartisan majority of Americans, 62%, would support the federal government putting in place a guaranteed income of either $500 or $1,000 a month. And that support went across political parties, went across age, race, gender. And even at that point, 47% of Republicans supported it, which is higher than any Republican support for other welfare social entitlement programs. So, through the data we've seen that guaranteed income is good policy. And through the polling, we know it's good politics as well. And so, over these next couple of years, our hope is that we can continue to build on the work that we've done at the local level and build up to the state and federal level.

[00:34:58] Crystal Fincher: So, I want to talk about what this does look like for policy. As other cities, counties, states are looking at this and saying - Okay, I see value here. How do we craft and implement this for our communities, our states? How do you recommend they go about that process?

[00:35:17] Dona Ponepinto: I will start to tell you a little bit about what we're doing in the state of Washington, which - I'm so proud of the work that's happening statewide. There's actually a group, a statewide group, that has been talking about guaranteed basic income - gosh, for at least the four years that we've been engaged in this - I feel like we started and then this group was bubbling up. But there have been several times where a bill has actually made it out of committee, but died on the floor. However, in that process, more and more legislators get a chance to hear what is this guaranteed income - we share the stories. For us, what happened after the Mayors for the Guaranteed Income demonstration ended, we were able to - through a relationship that the mayor has and we all have with the Speaker of the House - we were able to get a proviso in the state budget. Because the bigger one died - it was too expensive. So we were able to get a $1.9 million proviso in the state budget to continue doing what we were doing here in Tacoma in some of the outer zip codes in some of the unincorporated areas. So now we have 175 families that are getting $500 a month - started in March and it goes through next March. But we continue to look at ways and having conversations with the Department of Health and Human Services, because they're very interested. Governor Inslee created a poverty reduction workgroup back in 2018, I believe it was - and I was on that. And what we did is we developed a 10-year plan to end poverty. And this included folks with lived experience presenting these strategies - and one of the strategies is around cash assistance. So there's energy and momentum - we have to build the appetite here in Washington state - we need that public will and the political will. We need enough of the political will to continue to do what we did here in Tacoma in other parts of the state. It's baby steps, but I think we're going to get there.

[00:37:21] Crystal Fincher: And Mayor Woodards - as Dona just said, building the political will is so critical. What would your recommendation be to other mayors, to other municipal and county elected officials who are looking to build support for this in their communities? What can they learn from how you've navigated and approached this?

[00:37:41] Mayor Victoria Woodards: I would say - if there are mayors who are interested, reach out to Mayors for a Guaranteed Income. The great thing about being engaged in this work is that you don't have to start from scratch, and you don't have to figure it out all by yourself. Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, and now Counties for a Guaranteed Income, and soon Governor - I mean, everybody's going to be for a guaranteed income. But they have a treasure full of information and support that they will give you. And even point you in the right direction where opportunity exists - where you might potentially get funding to do your pilot. They also know of every city that's done a pilot. So I say - if you're not sure, you want to learn more - obviously you can reach out to the City of Tacoma or to United Way. We'll share everything we have. But the other thing is reaching out to Mayors for a Guaranteed Income. You can get - not just Tacoma, but you can get information on every city. You can learn about what different pilots have done. Like we focused on ALICE, as I said earlier. Some folks focused on single mothers. Some focused on people who were going to college and paid them while they stayed in college so they could finish college. So there's all kinds of pilots out there. So that's the first thing I would say. The second thing that I would say is - there's always going to be pushback when you're trying to change a system. I am not going to lie and say - Oh, just stand one up, everybody will jump behind it. No, you got to be bold to be able to say - I'm going to do this kind of program in my community. And all you really have to say - because as Sukhi was talking about, what's happening across the country and what's different. I'll tell you, while every city did something a little bit different, I would ask Sukhi - Sukhi, has there been a city that didn't have positive results? And I think Sukhi would easily say - No, every city had positive results. So don't be afraid, be bold, do it, and then your data will be able to prove everyone wrong who didn't believe that this kind of program could be effective in lifting people out of poverty. So that's my advice.

And again, what we also know is a reality. Cities definitely can't do it by themselves. States don't have enough ongoing funding to be able to support a program like this. I'm glad that Tacoma and Pierce County are now doing GRIT 2.0 with some funding we got from the state. But the long-term implementation and sustainability of this kind of program is at the federal level. And so, trying a pilot just helps us gain more data and more steam and more support to continue to lobby at the federal level to say we need a cash assistance program or guaranteed income - whatever you want to call it - but we need this kind of program nationally. And the other thing I'd love Dona just to share - she's just really good at talking about - and that's just, during COVID, we did some cash assistance programs and they were successful. So Dona, will you add that in? Because you've got those statistics a lot better than I do.

[00:40:48] Dona Ponepinto: Yes. Well, I don't know if I have all of them right off the top of my head, but during COVID, families received stimulus. Most, if not all, families received stimulus payments from the federal government, along with the childcare tax credits that they received. And all of those things helped lift ALICE families out of poverty. And then when those childcare tax credits, for instance, ended - I believe in December of '21 - those same children plummeted back into poverty. So the thing about it is, is that the resources are there. If you think about it - during COVID, the federal government was able to help families throughout this country. And so we have to think differently about how the current streams of resources are being used. For instance, there's been some discussion - in fact, in the state here, it was recently a part of discussion about TANF dollars - and those dollars are actually block grant dollars that the state has some flexibility. And we are looking at - is there a way to use public and private dollars to be able to continue to do these kinds of pilots? But to the mayor's point, that's not sustainable long term. The money has got to come from somewhere. But I personally think - and I think there's more people that think that way - we have to look at some of the pools of dollars that are out there right now, where families have to jump over hoop after hoop after hoop just to get public assistance. And so how do you remove some of those barriers and utilize some of those dollars to give unconditional cash assistance? So I think that's also part of the work ahead, because it's always going to be - There's not enough money. Right? But we put trillions of dollars into the safety net, and our families aren't any better off. Yes, there's success stories, but as a whole, families are struggling even more. And so I think during COVID, we were able to solve for that problem. And it's just going to, again, take the public and the political will to make changes happen.

[00:43:02] Crystal Fincher: And as we just move to close today - obviously, there's a lot of conversations happening here in Washington state. As we look at this movement nationally, Sukhi, what is next for the pilots? What's next for moving the conversation on guaranteed income forward?

[00:43:20] Sukhi Samra: There's a couple of things. The first is that both the Harris-Walz ticket and the Trump-Vance ticket had run on an expanded child tax credit. And so making sure that as we're transitioning from campaign to actual governance - whatever that may look like - that the promises that were made on the campaign trail stay true. And that whatever tax conversation happens next year doesn't weigh too much in favor of corporations, and instead does have something baked in for working families. And so while the election outcomes weren't what we wanted, we will continue to work alongside the incoming administration and align our mayors - that we are advocating as much as possible to include some benefits for working class families in whatever iteration of a new tax bill comes out next year. In addition to that - over these next couple of years, we will continue to build the case that guaranteed income works - continue to do it at the local level, county level, and also at the state level. As Mayor Woodards said, states don't necessarily have the budget for long-term guaranteed income programs. But states can have the budget for shorter-term pilots so that we're expanding beyond just our metropolitan centers and making the case in rural areas, as well, that guaranteed income work. So excited to push statewide legislation forward for temporary guaranteed income programs that are a little bit more targeted, and to just continue to make the case and continue the drumbeat of success for guaranteed income.

[00:44:40] Crystal Fincher: Well, thank you all for joining us - helping to educate our listeners today. For really moving the national conversation forward. For producing such a wonderful report that we'll include in our episode notes - over a 50-page report on GRIT in Tacoma - the study, the outcomes, and the findings from that. And we will continue to follow the progress of this in Washington state and the nation. Sukhi Samra, Mayor Victoria Woodards, and the award-winning Dona Ponepinto of United Way of Pierce County - thank you all so much for joining us today.

[00:45:16] Sukhi Samra: Thank you.

[00:45:17] Mayor Victoria Woodards: Thanks.

[00:45:18] Dona Ponepinto: Thank you.

[00:45:20] Crystal Fincher: Thank you for listening to Hacks & Wonks, which is produced by Shannon Cheng. You can follow Hacks & Wonks on Twitter @HacksWonks. You can catch Hacks & Wonks on every podcast service and app - just type "Hacks and Wonks" into the search bar. Be sure to subscribe to get the full versions of our Friday week-in-review shows and our Tuesday topical show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave a review wherever you listen. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to the resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the podcast episode notes.

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