Guaranteed Income Works: Data from City of Los angeles,ca
Basic Income Guaranteed: Los Angeles Economic Assistance Pilot
Basic Income Guaranteed: Los Angeles Economic Assistance Pilot (BIG:LEAP) was a 12-month guaranteed income program providing approximately 3,200 individuals with $1,000 per month. Announced in 2021 by Mayor Eric Garcetti, a founding MGI member, the program was implemented by the city’s Community Investment for Families Department (CIFD) and supported by the general fund as well as investments from Los Angeles City Councilmembers. To qualify, applicants had to be a resident of Los Angeles, 18 years or older, either pregnant or with at least one dependent child (younger than 18 or a student younger than 24), with income at or below the federal poverty level. First payments went out in January 2022 and final payments were disbursed in March 2023.
The city partnered with researchers from the Center for Guaranteed Income Research (CGIR), along with the University of Southern California (USC) Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Fielding School of Public Health, to launch a mixed-methods randomized controlled trial (RCT), with a control group of 4,992 similar families, to test the impacts of guaranteed income on a battery of outcomes. Researchers found positive trends in financial well-being, food security, intimate partner violence, parenting, sense of community, and reducing fear of community violence.
Key Takeaways
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The acute pressures of the Los Angeles housing market forced families to prioritize securing their housing first. The housing cost burden was extremely high for all participants across the study, with nearly half of participants spending upward of 70% of their monthly income on housing expenses.
Recipients credit the guaranteed income with keeping them from needing to access other housing services, preventing complete financial exhaustion due to the rising cost of rent, and serving as a buffer that could tide them over while waiting for other housing support to arrive.
The guaranteed income also provided them with a degree of safety and flexibility about whom they chose to live with versus feeling forced to remain in unsafe housing situations, neighborhoods, or relationships.
Guaranteed income recipients were considerably more likely to report reduced fear of neighborhood violence and increased positive interactions with neighbors.
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Both quantitative and qualitative data indicate that providing recurring unconditional cash reduced or prevented the incidence of intimate partner violence (IPV) among recipients. Compared to people in the control group, recipients of guaranteed income reported lower levels of psychological abuse, sexual abuse, and coercive control across each time point, with a statistically significant difference noted at the 18-month mark.
Recipients described leveraging the cash to escape living situations where IPV was prevalent, to avoid returning to an abusive environment in order to secure housing or transportation for work, to avoid seeking housing in a domestic violence shelter, or to supplement services they were receiving for experiences with IPV.
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Far more guaranteed income recipients reported that their children participated in enrichment activities, such as sports, lessons, and clubs, compared to parents in the control group.
Enrichment extended beyond activities outside of the home and included participants describing more time for engaging in relationships, parenting, and community once basic needs were met and time scarcity lifted.
Meanwhile, parents directly attributed positive shifts in their children’s academic performance, coping skills, and behavior to spending more time with their children.
Treatment participants reported significantly lower levels of household stress and disorder.
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GI participants reported an increasing sense of financial well-being over the study period.
The household’s ability to cover a $400 emergency expense using cash improved significantly for the treatment group during and after the cash disbursement period, ending at a significantly higher rate than the control group.
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Guaranteed income recipients showed a notable decrease in food insecurity and an increase in health-promoting behaviors.
BIG:LEAP marks a number of milestones — the first large-scale randomized controlled trial of unconditional cash positioned to determine how much change can occur in recipients’ lives within a 12-month period, the largest guaranteed income study that has concluded since the U.S. government’s experiments with income tax in the 1960s and 1970s, and the first guaranteed income study since the 1970s to consider intimate partner violence and community violence.
Despite extreme financial pressures and profound effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers found that recipients benefited from guaranteed income in several ways over the duration of the program. These unconditional, regular, and direct cash payments to individual participants provided an income floor for those without one, strengthening the social safety net and expanding access in the process.