Marin Community Foundation ends guaranteed income experiment

The program, dubbed “MOMentum," provided $1,000 a month for 125 mothers for two years. Organizers extended it a third year but tapered off the payments.

The Marin Community Foundation has concluded a three-year, $3.5 million experiment with guaranteed minimum income.

“Guaranteed income has proven its efficacy,” Johnathan Logan, a former executive at the foundation, wrote in a forward to a program evaluation the organization commissioned. “Families thrived when provided the security of guaranteed income.”

The program, dubbed “MOMentum,” was initially designed to provide $1,000 a month for 125 mothers for two years. The program was restricted to women of color.

By the second year of the program, the foundation decided to extend funding for a year to ease the transition as the cash infusions came to an end. In the final year of the program, participants received $1,000 for the first three months, then $750, $500 and $250 for three months each.

In March 2021, county supervisors voted unanimously to contribute $400,000 to support the program. However, the contribution was never made, nor was the decision to cancel the allocation mentioned at a subsequent supervisors’ meeting.

Asked about the decision before he retired in March, former county executive Matthew Hymel said, “We never ended up contributing the $400,000 to the foundation for the guaranteed income project because our funding was not necessary for their program to launch.”

Asked if the county withdrew the funding or if the foundation rejected it, Vikki Garrod, a spokesperson for the foundation, said, “From what I remember it was a mutual decision to consolidate the pilot at MCF.”

After the supervisors’ vote to fund the project, a group of Marin taxpayers contacted supervisors to object to the allocation of taxpayer money to a program that excluded white women.

A community needs assessment conducted by Community Action Marin last year found that while poverty affects people of color in Marin disproportionately, 42.5% of Marin residents living in poverty are white residents, 24.4% are Latino residents, 4.6% are Asian residents and 3.6% are Black residents.

“It’s a common misconception, often promoted by our media and culture, that poverty almost exclusively affects communities of color,” the study said.

Hymel said that threatened legal action was not the reason the allocation was canceled, but he said “government funds would likely complicate how the program is designed or create new requirements.”

The foundation hired Social Policy Research Associates in Oakland to evaluate the pilot.

“In Marin County, women of color and their children experience one of the greatest income inequities and disparities in the nation,” the organization wrote in its introduction. “Exacerbated by the context of the pandemic and rising inflation, existing structural inequities and disparities are based on historical and current racist narratives, as well as policies and systems that perpetuate poverty.”

“These dynamics obstruct opportunities for upward mobility, restrict their self-determination, and limit the universe of possibilities available to women of color and their children,” the organization said.

UpTogether, a nonprofit in Oakland, managed the program in collaboration with the foundation. UpTogether designed the cash transfer process; selected participants and determined eligibility; and delivered the cash payments directly to the participants by direct deposit or a cash card.

Several Marin nonprofits — North Marin Community Services, Performing Stars, the Multicultural Center of Marin and West Marin Community Services — assisted UpTogether in selecting participants.

Sixty-eight percent of the mothers who participated were Latino residents and 22% were African American residents. All of the women had at least one child under the age of 18. They ranged in age from 20 to 61.

The participants had a median household size of four and an annual household income just under $29,000. Seventy-four percent of the women had experienced a job loss, a decrease in work hours or both because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Garrod said the participants were a “mix of single and married mothers” and that “immigration status was not asked.”

In its report, Social Policy Research Associates wrote that a central objective of the foundation was “to demonstrate the value of guaranteed income in supporting low-income BIPOC moms on their journey toward economic and social mobility and to shift the pervasive negative narratives about the trustworthiness of how those with low incomes would use unconditional cash.” BIPOC stands for Black, Indigenous and people of color.

Participants were unrestricted in deciding how to spend the money they received and were not required to submit receipts. A central premise of guaranteed income advocates is that people receiving government assistance can more efficiently and effectively make their own choices about how to spend government resources allocated to them.

Before voting to allocate money to the program, Supervisor Katie Rice said she hoped the pilot would illuminate “what cash aid can do that typical programs have not done.”

The evaluation was based on Social Policy Research Associates’ interviews with 30 of the participants and a survey that 68% of the mothers filled out. Researchers noted that “not all survey respondents completed each question.” Interviewees each received $350 for their cooperation.

Garrod pointed to a number of the women’s responses contained in the evaluation as proof of the program’s success. Highlights she cited included: mothers were able to pay down debt, with 76% saying their debt was more manageable; mothers experienced an 8% decrease in homelessness; 77% reported they worried less about having enough food for their families; and 59% said their health improved.

The guaranteed income supplied to the participants came in addition to traditional government support programs. The foundation secured waivers to prevent any interruption in public housing, CalWorks and CalFresh benefits.