Guaranteed Income Works: Data from Oakland, CA
Oakland Resilient Families
Oakland Resilient Families began with former Mayor Libby Schaaf’s pledge to bring a guaranteed income pilot to Oakland when she joined Mayors for a Guaranteed Income as a founding mayor in the summer of 2020. This collaboration between the Mayor’s Office, UpTogether, and Oakland Thrives was 100% funded through philanthropic donations and run by a collaboration of local community-based organizations.
Oakland Resilient Families provided 600 randomly selected Oakland families with low incomes and one or more children under 18 with a guaranteed income of $500 per month for 18 months. With an intentional focus on groups with the greatest wealth disparities per the Oakland Equity Index, recipients were randomly selected from two cohorts. Cohort 1 was residents in a one square mile area of East Oakland with income below 50% of the Area Median Income and at least one child under 18. Cohort 2 was Oakland households living below 138% of the federal poverty level with at least one child under 18.
Researchers conducted a mixed-methods randomized controlled trial (RCT), which included Cohort 2 (300 people) plus a control group of 360 people randomly selected from the pool of qualified applicants. Data shows improvements in housing security, increased employment rates, better mental wellbeing and more parental engagement in children’s school.
Key Takeaways
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Recipients demonstrated greater housing stability, reduced housing cost burden, and lower rates of homelessness, despite housing costs and historically high inflation rates on basic necessities.
Guaranteed income reduced housing cost burden during the disbursement period, with recipients experiencing a statistically significant decline in median cost burden at 6, 12 and 18 months. Being housing cost burdened is defined as spending 30% or more of monthly household income on rent. The overall cost burden for both groups was high, due to broader economic factors in Oakland.
Six months into the program, recipients were 38.6% less likely to be homeless than people in the control group; that difference increased at 12 months, with recipients 43.9% less likely to be experiencing homelessness. There was a lower rate of emergency homelessness among recipients during the program. After the payments stopped, the rate of emergency homelessness rose for both former recipients and control group members.
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There was an increase in full-time employment among recipients, rising from 15% at Baseline to 26% by the end of the pilot. The rate of full-time employment amongst people in the control group remained largely unchanged throughout the study.
While both groups experienced financial precarity amid economic turbulence, recipients showed less fluctuation in their month-to-month income, compared to the control group.
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Recipients were able to attend parent-teacher conferences and PTA meetings at a higher rate than the control group, indicating greater engagement in their children’s education.
The children of recipients were more likely to receive A-grades across all subjects at the end of the disbursement period, perhaps reflecting the benefits of increased parental involvement in school. This was sustained 6 months after the pilot ended.
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Guaranteed income may have provided temporary relief from mental strain. Recipients demonstrated lower levels of psychological distress during the disbursement period, and there was a significant drop in depression at 12 months.
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Recipients were more likely to be able to help out family and friends financially. They reported higher levels of reliance, feeling like others could depend on them.
Recipients also showed improvements in how they perceived other people’s emotional investment in them and described how guaranteed income allowed them to plan for a better future.
Oakland Resilient Families shows that when residents receive unconditional cash, they make decisions that stabilize their households and unlock potential. In a city where living costs have risen sharply, the widening economic gap has trapped many residents in extreme poverty. Guaranteed income is an effective policy tool for lifting up families who are struggling to make ends meet, breaking the cycle of generational poverty and strengthening communities.