DC Council Committee of the Whole April 8 2022

Testimony before the DC City Council Committee of the Whole Budget Oversight Hearing

Melody R. Webb, Esq.   Mother’s Outreach Network

Bill 24-714, Fiscal Year 2023 Budget Support Act of 2022
Bill 24-715, Fiscal Year 2023 Federal Portion Budget Request Act of 2022
Bill 24-716, Fiscal Year 2023 Local Budget Act of 2022
Bill 24-717, Fiscal Year 2022 Revised Local Budget Emergency Adjustment Act of 2022 Bill 24-719, Fiscal Year 2022 Second Revised Local Budget Emergency Act of 2022

Friday, April 8, 2022, 9:30 a.m.

Good morning, Chairman Mendelson and members of the City Council. My name is Melody Webb, and I am Executive Director of Mothers Outreach Network (MON) and co-lead of the DC Guaranteed Income Coalition. I am also a Ward 6 Southwest DC resident and a native Washingtonian. MON is a DC based non-profit that uses direct representation, legal information workshops, policy advocacy, mutual aid, and holistic strategies to support and empower DC mothers seeking economic security while facing the involuntary removal of their children to the foster system. Our DCGI Coalition mission prioritizes the agency and dignity of our DC neighbors experiencing poverty.

As home to one of the largest and earliest privately funded guaranteed income pilots – THRIVE East of the River, as the home of three pilots scheduled to launch this spring –  Let’s GO DMV for displaced hospitality workers, the FY 2022 Guaranteed Income funded initiative for which the Guaranteed Income Coalition fought for funding, and Mother’s Outreach Network’s own effort that is still a developing pilot for mothers navigating the child welfare system – local Washington, DC is showcasing the demand for guaranteed income. What is also more evident is the city must protect the benefits of all individuals receiving guaranteed income payments.

Introduction.

Washington, DC holds the honor of being home to one of the earliest and largest cash transfer programs in the country, THRIVE East of the River, a group of four nonprofit organizations, which paid $1,100 monthly for five months to nearly 600 DC residents in Wards 7 and 8 after the onset of the Pandemic. But in the FY 2022 local budget, the DC City Council, in a measure sponsored by Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie, carved out through a process run by the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development. It is historic in its provision of public dollars for monthly payments toward what Councilmember McDuffie’s office calls an initiative to promote racial equity. That funding was augmented by a measure introduced on Tuesday April 5, 2022 to minimize the benefits cliff effect for participants in the 2022 Direct Cash Pilot guaranteed income program funded in FY 2022. In fact, Councilmember McDuffie has recently proposed an amendment to the underlying legislation in the budget docket that would mitigate the benefits cliff. Such legislation is a step toward minimizing the “cliff effect” in providing relief to participants in the 2022 publicly funded Direct Cash Pilot, but more comprehensive legislation is needed[1] to protect the beneficiaries of social safety net programs in privately funded direct cash programs and pilots, including those listed above.

Overview.

The DC Guaranteed Income Coalition seeks to deploy publicly funded guaranteed income demonstration projects across multiple populations of our DC community – for people returning from incarceration, for foster youth aging out of the system, for unhoused people, and others. Importantly, Mother’s Outreach Network is planning to launch a privately-funded guaranteed income pilot in the summer of this year, and we seek benefits protection for the future participants in the pilot.

This work is more critical than ever: pre-pandemic, on average, 35% of Black D.C. families headed by single mothers were impoverished, as were 34 percent of Hispanic headed households; and 22% of Asian-women headed households.[2] Black women, particularly, have regularly been on the frontlines of the country’s financial crises, including the Covid-19 pandemic “as essential workers, as caregivers in both informal and formal labor markets, and as one of the groups hardest hit by massive unemployment.”[3] Guaranteed income policies around the country have shown  application of “black women best” policy, providing unconditional cash has increasingly shown the potential for countering generational inequality and ongoing discrimination that Black women bear in the labor market. “Black women best” is the economic principle that if a policy improves the circumstances of Black women it will benefit the entire economy[4].

Guaranteed income, within our mission, would provide payments to recipients that bring them above an income floor, ideally the Federal Poverty Line, (FPL) which is about $12,800 per individual per year.

As a coalition we are interested in this funding because our mission includes the pursuit of a solidarity economy that seeks racial economic justice and prioritizes agency and dignity above profit. As such it is our hope to, like cities and states around the region – Alexandria, Arlington, Montgomery County, Baltimore – and around the country, Nashville, Tennessee and Jackson Mississippi – as well as the state governments of California and Massachusetts, to deploy demonstration projects, and, through a groundswell, inspire policy change at the local, state, and national level.

Our Budget Request.

In response to this poverty, this is our two-fold ask: First, we seek a fund of $13.5 million to pay $500 per month to 750 of our neighbors for three years, and a guaranteed program that is transparent with 5-10 participating organizations serving populations who face diverse social and economic circumstances, to elucidate best approaches to poverty. Second, we ask for waivers[5] or statutory measures[6] to exempt guaranteed income pilot payments as income for benefits like SNAP, TANF, Medicaid, and housing subsidies and in the interim we seek a Hold Harmless Fund of $6.75 million to support families whose safety net benefits may be reduced or lost because of the extra income received through this three-year guaranteed income pilot.[7]

Our request to the committee raises an opportunity to shore up the safety net of programs in your purview and to make inroads into a problem – the benefits cliff – that touches the lives of every individual who currently receives safety net benefits. The experience is familiar to many, that if they make a step forward with a new job, a wage increase, or a windfall payout – their rent will increase or their SNAP or TANF[8] benefits are jeopardized. Exploring and passing mitigation measures to address loss of public health insurance, one of the most difficult benefits to reestablish[9] is critical. As one mom in our network states it “what the city gives, it takes back”.  In addition to being insufficient it discourages mobility. Thus, we ask for an allocation for guaranteed income and for a hold harmless fund.

Background on this Council’s FY 2022 Actions on Guaranteed Income.

Last year, following the  May 25^th Public Hearing on B24-0236- The “Child Wealth Building Act of 2021” And Tax Policy Proposals to Build Wealth Equity in the District’s Post-COVID-19 Economic Recovery before the Committee on Business & Economic Development that Committee reported out a budget request for $1.5 million for guaranteed income cash pilot or programs.

For Fiscal Year 2022, the City approved an $1.5 million in historic guaranteed income funding. This aligned with other measures in which the City took a lead on income justice in 2021 – the enhanced local EITC and the Child Wealth Building Act “baby bonds”. But there is more to do. The allocation was a seed for a larger effort to mitigate poverty for those not currently protected by the existing safety net, and we must do more. As inflation drives prices through the roof and neglect related reports and some say crime related social instability rooted in poverty increases, we need more to reach the most impoverished. We need a permanent guaranteed income.

The intent of the FY 2022 Local Budget Act Guaranteed Income Fund.

While the final enacted FY 2022 Local Budget Act describes the program at issue without reference to “guaranteed income”, the Committee intended for it to transform our approach to poverty. As the Committee report states, it was meant to be “an important step in re-examining the way we approach and develop systems that provide stability and access for District households. On July 1, 2021 this Committee unanimously reported out $1.5 million in funds to support “Guaranteed Basic Income pilot programs… that would empower low and middle-income families to become financially secure and reduce structural inequities.”[10]

The guaranteed income fund was intended to plant a seed for policy change rather than fund a new Mayoral cash assistance initiative. Guaranteed income, which is best known in connection with civil rights icon Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is an unconditional payment of cash to a recipient by a public or private source, but with a moral core and a broader social justice mission – it seeks to build policy to permanently eradicate poverty. It is more than a well-meaning, executive branch initiative. In 1964, Dr. King explained as much stating “I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective — the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income.“[11]

Background on the Guaranteed Income Coalition: Responding to the Need for Guaranteed Income.

In the fall of 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, MON joined with DC residents, DC workers, advocates and an array of institutional organizations, including philanthropist stakeholders, to form our citywide DC UBI Coalition, now known as DC Guaranteed Income Coalition. It includes participants hailing from wards 5, 6, 7, and 8. The coalition is exploring and convening around addressing poverty through a range of basic income strategies, from guaranteed to universal. We were inspired by the example of DC’s THRIVE East of the River (THRIVE) cash transfer pilot program.[12] A growing number of participants in the Coalition and allies have coalesced to support a petition campaign[13] to gain Mayor Bowser’s support for guaranteed income measures through joining Mayors for a Guaranteed Income.[14] Membership in this national coalition would allow her to acquire private funds, up to $500,000 as well as technical assistance. With these private funds, she could fund existing pilot programs such as THRIVE and emerging pilot initiatives. We are hopeful she will hold talks with us to discuss this important opportunity. The full list of petition signatory organizations is included in the attached appendix.

The Need for Guaranteed Income.

There’s an unconscionable level of poverty in Washington, D.C.[15] and the Council’s focus upon it is critical, and potentially life altering for individuals who sadly fall through the safety net and have chronic racial barriers to employment. In a city with a wealth gap[16] resources exist that can eliminate this poverty. I’m here to discuss the simple measure, as Dr. King called it, to do so. I will only skim the dimensions of this city’s poverty, discuss what our organization and coalition are doing, and \\ describe a proposal for a citywide publicly funded program along with thoughts on how to address likely challenges.

Available safety net benefits do not address entrenched poverty.

Driven by long-standing, structurally racist policies and practices, poverty, in D.C., is rampant and falls most heavily on Black, Indigenous People of Color, as it does nationwide. According to the D.C. City Council’s own report released in 2018, Economic and Policy Impact Statement: Approaches and Strategies for Providing a Minimum Income in the District of Columbia (“2018 D.C. Council Minimum Income Report”),[17] “it is very difficult for low-income households living in the District to make ends meet. The public social safety net provides enough resources for some, but not most, low-income households to meet their basic needs”.[18]

The cost to live in DC exceeds the Federal Poverty Level (FPL)[19]. The cost of living in the nation’s capital is closest to 300% of FPL for households without children; 450% of FPL is closest to the cost of living estimate for households with children.[20] And the District’s minimum wage, while paying $15 per hour, about $30,000 annual salary, does not permit childless adults or families with households to meet the cost of living. In DC, the cost of a household with children to live in DC is 450% of the FPL – $66,000 for an adult with one child, $96,000 for an adult with two children.

The fruits of racism are ubiquitous in Washington DC, producing a brutal racial economic caste system of income and wealth inequality evident through the following:

• In relevant part the DC Code defines a “neglected child” to mean a child whose deprivation is “not due to the lack of financial means of his or her parent, guardian, or custodian.”^[21]
• Of specific concern to our work, eighty percent of D.C. cases in foster care, in 2020, are rooted in poverty, stemming from neglect-based allegations.[22]
• At current mortality rates from one recent study a Black infant boy born in DC will die 17 years earlier than a White baby boy.[23]
• Income insecurity has collateral and racially disproportionate consequences in multiple domains of life and death: housing instability[24], preventable high maternal mortality rate and adverse outcomes[25] and premature mortality rates.[26]
• For every dollar a White man makes in the nation’s capital, a Black woman makes 51 cents[27].
• The median income of White people swelled to $160,000 in 2017, a jump of $44,000 from 2007. During that span between 2000 and 2017, the White population increased from 30 to 40 percent. Meanwhile, the Black population dropped by 16 percent during that period. The median income of Black people rose to $48,000 from $42,000.
• Pre-pandemic 26% of kids in DC lived in poverty; and most of color[28] and pre-pandemic, 1 in 4 Black DC residents lived in poverty, as did 13% of Latinx residents and 6.4 % of non-Hispanic whites.[29]
• As for the cost to live in DC, DC’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) joint federal-state cash assistance in fact does not bring families to the poverty line. While we support retention of existing public benefits programs, we have concerns regarding DC’s TANF program, including its impact on reducing poverty and it work sanctions.[30]
• The Federal Poverty Level (FPL) is about $12,800 per individual per year, $4,000 per child. An enduring reflection of racial inequality in America, here in DC the TANF income level is now around 37% of the FPL. This level disproportionately harms Black children, as White children in New Hampshire receive a TANF benefit of the highest national level of 60% of the FPL.[31]

The Mandate to Address Inequality: Dozens of Communities Have Adopted Public or Private Guaranteed Income Demonstration Projects .

We must eliminate poverty. We have the ability to do so, using a guaranteed income program. There are many pilot models for subpopulations. For low income BIPOC mothers Magnolia Mothers Trust[32] and the Abundant Birth Project[33] are emblematic of the potential for reducing poverty. THRIVE East of the River, as discussed earlier, serves as the model for guaranteed income in the District of Columbia’s back yard.[34]

Background Terms.

Following is a set of terms and definitions used in the discussion of minimum income policies. Universal Basic Income (UBI) means “All households regardless of their income, health status or participation in the labor market would receive a cash transfer of the same amount. No household would be excluded or receive a different benefit.”[35] A UBI payment could be based around the Federal Poverty Level value (around $12,800 per adult per year; and around $4,180 per child per year).

Guaranteed Income means policymakers would set an income floor, committing to all residents having at least the specified amount of cash available to them each year “through a combination of earned income and cash transfers. Minimum income transfers would be made to DC residents without any income and those whose wages fell below the established income floor. A household’s cash transfer would be equal to the gap between their earned income and the income floor. Those who earned above the income floor would not receive a transfer.[36]

Minimum Income Refundable Tax Credit – would use a negative income credit tax credit, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit, to raise the income to a predetermined threshold for wage earners.[37] The District’s local Earned Income Tax Credit, already a powerful tool against poverty, will beginning for tax year 2022 render broad benefits to some of the lowest income households, providing 70% of the federal EITC for eligible participants and ultimately 100% of the benefit.[38] A negative income tax is a transfer from the government, for a credit, rather than a payment to the government, for a tax liability.

Justifications for a Guaranteed Income Program.

A DC guaranteed income program should aim to eliminate poverty for those who fall below the Federal Poverty Level. There are three critical reasons to undertake such a measure. First, it is essential for breaking the intergenerational cycle of racialized poverty, while there is widespread political support for racial justice. Second, it is important to foster a healthy inclusive democracy that addresses historical economic inequality, and third, guaranteed income works.

Second, while the DC state of emergency that was declared due to the Covid-19 pandemic may conclude in July 2021,[39] another emergency is burning, unabated – a “racial equity emergency”. It demands our attention. The alarms around racialized economic inequity have been sounding for many decades, if not centuries, and finally, the Covid-19 pandemic, compelled national, and local attention to it with its obvious racialized hue. For example, locally, 80% of Covid-19 deaths in DC were suffered by Black DC residents, who comprise only 50% of DC’s population.[40] While this racial equity emergency rages on, it is akin to the current public health emergency, and should form the basis for extending Covid-19 policy programs that provided financial relief to DC’s poorest residents. One such form of relief was a waiver that exempted public benefits as countable income for public benefits eligibility and for taxable income purposes.[41]

Third, the time is ripe for systemic racial justice policy action, for furthering democratic participation by demobilized groups. The racial justice movement was reignited following the reactions to nationally publicized police killings of unarmed Black citizens.  Further, we know that economic well-being is positively correlated with political participation, voting; and large differentials in voting rates, on average, of 20 percentage points, exist between higher and lower income Americans.[42] This can be easily explained: those with economic power in society, possess greater political power, and exert it. The participation rates of the poor are far lower and theorized to actually have been able to flip the 2016 Presidential election results. Economist Sendhil Mullainathan in his book Scarcity explains the distraction of poverty and the preoccupation with basic needs that it instils: to our fellow, impoverished Americans, participation in our democracy is not a basic necessity.[43]  When reflecting on American abolition at the 100^th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, former President Lyndon B. Johnson stated: “Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men\’s skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact.”[44]

Further Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. urged that supporting anything less than full economic participation by Black Americans is turning one’s back on racial economic equality and deciding to have a nation in which America is a democracy for white Americans but at the same time a dictatorship over Black Americans.[45]

Finally, the evidence points to positive outcomes – guaranteed income works. Pilot initiatives such as the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (SEED)[46] reflect this. And following the success of the Covid-19 stimulus relief packages, popularity for recurring payments is highly positive and bipartisan.[47]

Guaranteed Income Program Recommendations.

I urge the DC City Council to undertake the following:

• Guaranteed Income Funding, as discussed above, three-year city-funded pilot programs, using a public-private model. Fund guaranteed income pilots as a first step to a permanent citywide program. For example, I urge adoption of pilot programs adequate to support 750 households at $500 monthly for three years.[48]
• Benefits Cliff Measures to adopt, as outlined above, should incorporate the principles and best practices with respect to the benefits cliff, while establishing a hold harmless fund as described above, such as the following:
  • Obtain benefit waivers similar to those in operation during the city’s Covid-19 emergency.[49]
  • Build in features to allow for resident driven planning; design pilots for marginalized subpopulations, such as mothers with disabled children; individuals who are unhoused; returning citizens, and others. Include best practices such as distributing payments through bank-linked pre-paid debit cards.[50]
  • Create a cross agency task force and staff it with a liaison to the federal network of organizations within the Guaranteed Income Community of Practice of the Economic Security Project, to explore best practices to avoid benefits cliff and to advocate[51] for changes at the federal level.
  • Explore establishment of local tools modeled on federal benefits tools such as cliff calculators, to explain the benefits cliff[52]
  • Facilitate benefits counseling for pilot participants[53]
  • Support efforts to structure payments as a gift[54]
  • Hold a roundtable on benefits cliff legislation and waivers across the spectrum of issues when it arises such as for direct cash transfer payments and economic mobility circumstances related to wage increases.[55]

 

Options for Financing a Guaranteed Income Program

The City should explore the following options for funding a guaranteed income program.

• Request federal funding to augment or provide the funding for the program, to include the following:
  • Join Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, which would make the city eligible for $500,000 and assistance in addressing technical assistance issues such as benefits cliff issues.
  • Request new federal funding, similar to the new TANF Pandemic Emergency Assistance Fund.[56]
  • Advocate for other federal funding and private sources of support.
  • Explore use of a wide range of revenue policy measures.[57]

 

Addressing Guaranteed Income Counterarguments.

Strong rebuttals can be mounted to challenge counterarguments to guaranteed income policies:

• It would be too expensive. According to the 2018 City Council Impact Statement’s evaluation model REMI, the assumptions reflect the cost of universal basic income and guaranteed income programs are too expensive. While this may be true under the REMI models, there are alternative models such as those conducted by the Roosevelt Institute[58].
• The assistance would impact eligibility for means tested federal benefits, and federal funds the District gets based on population living under the poverty line. If federal benefit waivers were provided, including a hold harmless fund, for all safety net programs, eligibility and benefit levels would not be reduced.
• Guaranteed income payments could “destabilize the District’s tax base” such as generating increases in income and property taxes, causing people to leave the city. This approach makes a number of assumptions, which can be rebutted with other models, such as those conducted by the Roosevelt Institute.[59]
• Basic income will reduce workforce participation. Since the D.C. Council Minimum Income Report was published, data from a range of pilots suggest that these assumptions about work incentive are unfounded. For example, in Stockton’s pilot multitudinous evidence has debunked this assumption.

 

Conclusion

The D.C. City Council should take steps to pass income support legislation that will eliminate the stunning, widespread and deep poverty that continues to trap successive generations of city residents, disproportionately Black Washingtonians. The path consists of three stages: an examination of benefits cliff effect issues; a joint public-private partnership of guaranteed income pilot initiatives; and finally ,a permanent, publicly funded guaranteed income program. This permanent guaranteed income program should be targeted to DC residents living in poverty, and it should be phased-in over a period of several years, starting with a three-year pilot program. Funding a citywide program will bring the city closer to ensuring that all DC residents and DC workers can meet their needs with lives of dignity and agency.[60]

APPENDIX

Signatories to the Mayors for a Guaranteed Income Petition Campaign

Bread for the City

Brookland Manor Coalition

Consumer Health Foundation

Diverse City Fund

Empower DC

Greater Washington Community Foundation

Horning Family Fund

LIFT-DC

ONE DC

Restaurant Opportunities Center – DC

Serve Your City- Ward 6 Mutual Aid

Southeast Ministry

Southwest DC Action

Thrive East of the River

 

 

[1] See Illinois Public Act 101-0415 (2019) https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/fulltext.asp?Name=101-0415

[2] https://nwlc.org/state/district-of-columbia/

[3] https://rooseveltinstitute.org/publications/black-women-best-the-framework-we-need-for-an-equitable-economy/

[4] https://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/RI_Black-Women-Best_IssueBrief-202009.pdf

[5] https://code.dccouncil.us/dc/council/code/sections/4-205.05.html

[6] As discussed above, see note 5, Illinois Public Act 101-0415 (2019) https://www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/fulltext.asp?Name=101-0415 (a model for comprehensive benefits protection for participants in research-based demonstration cash guaranteed income programs).

[7] See Urban Institute An Evaluation of THRIVE East of the River Findings from a Guaranteed Income Pilot during the Covid-19 Pandemic (February 2022) https://www.urban.org/research/publication/evaluation-thrive-east-river/view/full_report at p. 40 -43 (discussing impact of cash transfer infusion on safety net benefits, responses of participants, and the analysis and response of THRIVE Community Based Organization partners)

[8] https://www.cbpp.org/blog/family-cash-assistance-programs-marked-by-historical-racism-especially-in-south

• [9] Mitigating loss of health insurance and means tested benefits in an unconditional cash transfer experiment: Implementation lessons from Stockton\’s guaranteed income pilot (Amy Castro, Stacia Martin, Sukhi Samra and Meagan Cusack) Structuring payments as a gift

[10]Report and Recommendations of the Committee on Business and Economic Development on the Fiscal Year 2022 Budget for Agencies Under Its Purview, page 4. https://lims.dccouncil.us/downloads/LIMS/47279/Committee_Report/B24-0275-Committee_Report4.pdf. See also https://thedcline.org/2021/07/01/press-release-councilmember-mcduffie-releases-committee-on-business-and-economic-development-fy22-budget-report/ . (See Committee Chair McDuffie’s comments on the FY 2022 Committee Budget report: “The Child Wealth Building Act and guaranteed basic income programs are transformational policies designed to help break the cycle of generational poverty for District residents. I am also proud to advance financial relief for workers and small businesses that have been the most impacted by this pandemic.”) See https://lims.dccouncil.us/Legislation/B24-0275 (Law NumberL24-0043 Effective from Nov 03, 2021.

[11] Martin Luther King, Jr. Where Do We Go From Here? (1967).

[12] https://bbardc.org/thrive/

[13] https://mothersoutreachnetwork.org/home/ubi-dc-coalition/petition-campaign-page/

[14] https://www.mayorsforagi.org

[15] The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed and exacerbated long-standing racial inequities in D.C.;  pre-pandemic, 1 in 4 Black DC residents lived in poverty: as did 13% of Latinx residents and 6.4 % of non-Hispanic whites; pre-pandemic, 26% of children in DC lived in poverty; and most of color; Black D.C. households are 13.5 times more likely to report they experience some food insecurity than White D.C. households Whereas, pre-pandemic, on average, 35% of Black families headed by single mothers were impoverished, as were 34 percent of Hispanic headed households; and 22% of Asian-women headed households; Black women face disproportionately high unemployment rates -in January 2020, there were 4.8% fewer Black women in the labor force than a year before, and a 3.1% fewer white women; Black and Latinx women possess  disproportionately greater caregiving responsibilities, work in lower paying jobs than their counterparts; experience health insecurity; are disproportionately essential workers^; and due to Covid-19, between February and April, 18.8% of Black women workers lost their jobs and 20% of Latinx women were unemployed; women suffered all 140,000 of the job losses in December 2020; During the Pandemic the unemployment rate for Black workers has been as high as 16.7 % and 14.2% for White workers; 18.9% for Latinx workers and 13.6 for non-Latinx workers.

[16] https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/09/26/income-inequality-america-highest-its-been-since-census-started-tracking-it-data-show/. See also https://www.dcfpi.org/all/economic-inequality-in-dc-reflects-disparities-in-income-wages-wealth-and-economic-mobility-policy-solutions-should-too/

[17] Council of the District of Columbia’s Office of the Budget Director, Economic and Policy Impact Statement: Approaches and Strategies for Providing a Minimum Income in the District of Columbia, Feb 27, 2018 (“D.C. Council Minimum Income Report”).

[18] https://dccouncil.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Economic-and-Policy-Impact-Statement-Approaches-and-Strategies-for-Providing-a-Minimum-Income-in-the-District-of-Columbia11.pdf,  (The estimated level of income that three, typical households in the District would need to pay for their basic necessities absent government benefit programs is (substantially higher) “. The income levels are as follows: Single adult:  Annual income of approximately $36,988 or an hourly wage of $17.78;  Single parent with one child: Annual income of about $66,113 or an hourly wage of $31.79.; and Single parent with two children: Annual income of roughly $96,885 or an hourly wage of $46.58. )

[19] https://aspe.hhs.gov/2021-poverty-guidelines (Describing the Federal Poverty Level for DC and 48 contiguous states for a household of 1 at $12,880; of 2 at $17,420; of 3 at $21,960).

[20] https://dccouncil.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Economic-and-Policy-Impact-Statement-Approaches-and-Strategies-for-Providing-a-Minimum-Income-in-the-District-of-Columbia11.pdf, at page 33

[21] DC Code 16-2301. 9(A)(ii)

[22] D.C. Child and Family Services Annual Public Report FY 2020, Released January 25, 2021.  Child Maltreatment 2019 U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (See the figure is national, 75% (Children’s Defense Fund The State of America’s Children 2020 report)

[23] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/black-men-in-dc-are-expected-to-die-17-years-earlier-than-white-men-heres-why/2020/08/27/8a679ca6-e805-11ea-a414-8422fa3e4116_story.html

[24] https://www.legalclinic.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Fact-Sheet-on-Homelessness-and-Housing-Instability-in-DC-1.pdf

[25] https://www.american.edu/spa/metro-policy/upload/maternal-mortality-in-dc-poster-spr-2020.pdf

[26] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-70046-6

[27] https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2020/07/29/black-women-pay-gap-dc/. See also “Between 2000 and 2017, the White population increased from 30 to 40 percent. The median income of White people jumped to $160,000 in 2017, an increase of $44,000 from 2007. Meanwhile, the Black population declined by 16 percent during that period. The median income of Black people increased to $48,000 from $42,000.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/black-men-in-dc-are-expected-to-die-17-years-earlier-than-white-men-heres-why/2020/08/27/8a679ca6-e805-11ea-a414-8422fa3e4116_story.html

[28] https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/poverty/reports/2021/01/12/494506/basic-facts-children-poverty/

[29] https://tinyurl.com/washpostnt4all

[30] https://www.cbpp.org/blog/family-cash-assistance-programs-marked-by-historical-racism-especially-in-south

[31] https://www.cbpp.org/research/family-income-support/tanf-benefits-still-too-low-to-help-families-especially-black-0. See also Laura Meyer and Ife Floyd, Cash Assistance Should Reach Millions More Famiies to Lessen Hardship: Families’ Access Limited by Policies Rooted in Racism. Updated November 30, 2020

[32] https://springboardto.org/magnolia-mothers-trust/

[33] https://www.expectingjustice.org/abundant-birth-project/

[34] See Urban Institute An Evaluation of THRIVE East of the River Findings from a Guaranteed Income Pilot during the Covid-19 Pandemic (February 2022) https://www.urban.org/research/publication/evaluation-thrive-east-river/view/full_report

[35] https://dccouncil.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Economic-and-Policy-Impact-Statement-Approaches-and-Strategies-for-Providing-a-Minimum-Income-in-the-District-of-Columbia11.pdf, at page 33

[36] https://dccouncil.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Economic-and-Policy-Impact-Statement-Approaches-and-Strategies-for-Providing-a-Minimum-Income-in-the-District-of-Columbia11.pdf at page 33

[37] https://dccouncil.us/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Economic-and-Policy-Impact-Statement-Approaches-and-Strategies-for-Providing-a-Minimum-Income-in-the-District-of-Columbia11.pdf

[38] See Bill 24-0616, the “Earned Income Tax Credit Expansion Clarification Amendment”.

Act of 2022” and https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/what-states-can-learn-district-columbias-eitc-expansion

[39]https://coronavirus.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/coronavirus/page_content/attachments/Mayor%27s%20Order%202021-069%20Modified%20Measures%20for%20Spring%20Summer%202021%20of%20Washington%2C%20DC%20Reopening%20and%20Extention%205-17-2021.pdf

[40] https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/black-dc-covid-killings-job-loss/2020/12/29/a06701be-40a6-11eb-8db8-395dedaaa036_story.html

[41] https://code.dccouncil.us/dc/council/code/sections/4-205.05.html

[42] https://www.poorpeoplescampaign.org/resource/power-of-poor-voters/

[43] From Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shifir, Scarcity, Why Having Too Little Means so Much (2013)

[44] https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/lbjfinalspeech.htm

[45] “We must face the hard fact that many Americans would like to have a nation which is a democracy for white Americans but simultaneously a dictatorship over black Americans.” Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. May 10, 1967 (The Atlantic)

[46] https://www.stocktondemonstration.org

[47] https://www.masslive.com/coronavirus/2021/01/65-of-americans-support-monthly-2000-covid-stimulus-payments-new-poll-shows.html

• [48] See L.A. County measure funding 2000 at $1,000 per month for three years: https://abc7.com/guaranteed-income-los-angeles-county-pilot-program/10659842/; https://stanfordrewired.com/post/potential-and-pitfalls-of-minimum-basic-income, Protecting Benefits in Guaranteed Income Pilots: Lessons Learned from the Abundant Birth Project (San Francisco Office of Financial Empowerment, Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative, Expecting Justice)

[49] See https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/dc-eviction-moratorium-vote/2021/05/18/e6ab285c-b7e4-11eb-a6b1-81296da0339b_story.html

[50] https://www.brookings.edu/blog/the-avenue/2020/09/29/how-a-washington-dc-coalition-is-using-place-based-cash-relief-to-advance-an-equitable-covid-19-recovery/

[51] https://stanfordrewired.com/post/potential-and-pitfalls-of-minimum-basic-income

• [52] Guaranteed Income Dashboard (Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta)
• Benefit Cliffs Calculator (National Center for Children in Poverty – limited to certain populations excluded, as noted on the website)

• [53] Federal Benefits Protection Fact Sheet (Guaranteed Income Community of Practice)
• Benefits counseling
  • [54] IRS FAQs on Gift Taxes
  • [55] Building Back Better with Direct Cash Assistance: Federal Opportunity to Support Evidence-Based Policy (The City of Philadelphia)

[56] See https://www.acf.hhs.gov/ofa/policy-guidance/tanf-acf-pi-2021-02 (DC’s allotment of the $1 billion in new federal funds totals $14,740,312)

[57] See David Schwartzman’s video presentation, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8MZEtmD-hU

[58] https://rooseveltinstitute.org/2017/08/31/starting-the-conversation-the-economics-of-a-universal-basic-income/

[59] https://rooseveltinstitute.org/2017/08/31/starting-the-conversation-the-economics-of-a-universal-basic-income/

[60] https://www.dccouncilbudget.com/providing-a-minimum-income-in-the-district-of-columbia