ST. LOUIS 鈥 Mayor Tishaura O. Jones鈥 administration on Thursday unveiled new details of a plan to send cash every month to hundreds of the city residents struggling to make ends meet, in hopes of changing the trajectory of those families and the city as a whole.
A bill before the Board of Aldermen calls for spending $5 million in federal pandemic stimulus to send $500 monthly payments to roughly 440 households for 18 months. Recipients would be lower-income parents or guardians of children attending city public schools. Aides said that criteria would get the money to families in desperate need of assistance.
鈥淭his is a critical opportunity for 最新杏吧原创 to support working parents and their children while reducing racial and gender inequality in our city,鈥 said mayoral spokesman Nick Desideri. 鈥淚nvesting in schoolchildren and their families is an investment in the future of our city.鈥
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The plan, sponsored by Alderman Shameem Clark Hubbard, still needs to get through multiple rounds of voting at the board. But if enacted, it would mark a major milestone for Jones鈥 efforts to address poverty, and place 最新杏吧原创 among more than 40 American cities and counties experimenting with sending cash, without instructions or strings attached, to struggling residents in hopes of getting them back on their feet and building better lives.
Experiments are already underway in Baltimore, Atlanta, Denver and Los Angeles, and smaller cities like Durham, North Carolina, and Columbia, South Carolina.
The idea first went public last month. But details just came out Thursday, before aldermen took up the bill in committee.
At that committee, Alderman Pam Boyd of Walnut Park West questioned the need for the program, given existing ones that help families with rent, utilities and food.
鈥淲e have so many services out here to help people,鈥 Boyd said. 鈥淚t sounds kind of contradictory to me.鈥
Alderman Marlene Davis of Jeff-Vander-Lou wondered if the program is sustainable. 鈥淲here do we go after these funds are gone?鈥 she asked.
But Jared Boyd, the mayor鈥檚 chief of staff, said the administration saw the program as a test, and wouldn鈥檛 commit more money toward the idea until staff can see how it works here.
And that was good enough for the committee, which voted to send the bill to the full board for further consideration.聽The bill also budgets money to help people who鈥檝e lost their homes, make a summer jobs program for youths year-round and expand health care offerings in the city.
The concept of a guaranteed income has been around for decades. The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Black Panther Party advocated for it in the 1960s. Republican President Richard Nixon almost got it through Congress in the 1970s. Entrepreneur Andrew Yang put it back in the mainstream during his upstart campaign for president in 2020.
But the rubber hit the road during the pandemic. The federal government temporarily expanded the child tax credit to send families up to $300 per month for each kid, which researchers later said cut child poverty in half. And policymakers got the first results back from an early experiment in Stockton, California, which suggested monthly cash payments helped stabilize households and made people more likely to get full-time jobs by freeing up time to pursue them.
One recipient there had been eligible to get a real estate license for more than a year, but couldn鈥檛 afford the time off to complete requirements, which include taking college-level courses and passing a written exam.
Now dozens of cities are trying to replicate that promise, sometimes with broad targets and other times with more specific projects targeting artists, young parents, or people recently released from prison.
Los Angeles is sending 3,200 people $1,000 per month for a year. Baltimore is writing $1,000 checks to 200 young parents every month for two years. Gainesville, Florida, is giving 115 people recently released from prison $1,000 one month, and then $500 for the next 11.
最新杏吧原创 took an initial step toward its own pilot program this year. Using $5 million in federal coronavirus aid, the city sent one-time, $500 checks to more than 9,000 households with a median income of just over $1,100 per month. Recipients had to be at least 18 years old and city residents for a year.
Officials said top uses for the money included food, utilities and gasoline for cars. Those results excluded ATM withdrawals and money transfers. The city has not yet said how much money those categories accounted for.
最新杏吧原创 Mayor Tishaura O. Jones
Jones told reporters at the time that the responses revealed a 鈥渄eep need鈥 for financial help among city residents, and indicated there was more to come.
The plan unveiled Thursday would put another $5 million toward the new effort. One million dollars would be set aside for administrative expenses. The rest would go to families making no more than 170% of federal poverty line 鈥 about $39,000 for a family of three.
Some details are still being worked out. For instance, it鈥檚 not clear how the extra money will impact recipients鈥 eligibility for other benefits. In California, the state doesn鈥檛 count the money from such programs. But it鈥檚 not yet clear if Missouri will do the same.
It鈥檚 also not clear when the program will begin. It took six months to set up the city鈥檚 one-time $500 payments last year. A spokesman for the city did not provide a prospective timeline Thursday.
