Economic Security Project Urges Local Taxes and Budget Shifts to Fund Guaranteed Income Programs

The Economic Security Project is urging government agencies to replace philanthropic support for guaranteed income programs with dedicated local taxes and redirected public spending. Founded in 2016, the organization states it consists of 100 entrepreneurs, activists, researchers, and philanthropists. It says it helped create over 100 guaranteed income pilots across the United States.

California leads the nation with 60 pilot launches. Its state affiliate, Economic Security California, has announced plans to move from temporary pilots to a permanent statewide program. The Economic Security Project recommends that agencies examine public funding mechanisms such as dedicated local taxes or shifting affordability-focused investments into direct cash supports.

It cites Breathe: LA County’s Guaranteed Income program, which is entirely publicly funded through the county’s Poverty Alleviation Initiative. Under federal law, American Rescue Plan Act funds had to be legally obligated by the end of 2024 and must be fully spent by December 2026. Several localities are now turning to local budgets as those deadlines approach.

Cook County, Illinois, the second-largest county in the United States, established a subsequent phase of its guaranteed basic income program after its initial 2022 pilot ended. 5 million for guaranteed income within its local county budget. The Economic Security Project states that a large and growing body of evidence demonstrates convincing impacts on economic insecurity, income, assets, physical and mental health, food insecurity, poverty, economic and gender inequalities, housing mobility, crime, early child development, and children’s school achievement, employment, and earnings in adulthood.

Michael D. Tubbs, former mayor of Stockton, California, started a pilot guaranteed income program in Stockton and has argued that regular cash infusions are necessary to help low-income Americans stay afloat amid high costs for basic expenses like rent, groceries, and gasoline. Fox News Digital reached out to the Economic Security Project for comment but did not immediately hear back.