Up to $22,500 per Participant To Be Handed Out as US County Greenlights Guaranteed Income Pilot Program: Report

A guaranteed income pilot program is launching in one US county to help those already enrolled in government aid programs pay for basic needs.

Contra Costa County in California will provide 178 people with up to $1,250 per month for 18 months, reports CBS News.

The program has just been approved by the Contra Costa County Board of Supervisors, which previously allocated $3.25 million in county funds and another $1 million in state funds for the effort. The program will be administered by the county’s Employment and Human Services Department.

Those eligible are from four specific populations: youth transitioning out of foster care, families with young children experiencing financial hardship, low-income seniors and people on probation returning to the community after incarceration.

Participants also need to be enrolled in county-sponsored programs to be eligible, such as CalWORKs. The first payments are expected to go out on January 15th.

Says Marla Stuart, director of the county’s Employment and Human Services Department,

“I think you can provide the most, the largest percent of the budget, to the benefits themselves if you don’t have to invest in administrative overhead, advertising, applications, determining eligibility and then managing the case throughout the period.”

Board chair Candace Andersen says the program is a pilot that may result in an expanded effort, noting there are more than 300,000 people in Contra Costa County on some form of government assistance.

“Most pilots are put in place to say, ‘Hey, does this work? Should we then expand it into a bigger program that might help even more people?’ And that’s what this is.”

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