America’s largest counties are pushing to expand the controversial guaranteed income experiment across the US.

Guaranteed income experiments being tested in Los Angeles and Chicago could spread across the country after county officials convened in Washington on Monday.

County leaders across the US met this week to announce a network of county-level basic income programs, the New York Times informed.

In December, Cook County, including Chicago, launched an unprecedented guaranteed income scheme that saw 3,200 residents receive $500 a month with no strings attached. Last year, Los Angeles County similarly implemented a pilot program that selected 1,000 people to receive monthly payments of $1,000.

Cook County Board Chairman Toni Preckwinkle and Los Angeles County Supervisor Holly Mitchell, who oversaw the launch of guaranteed income pilots in their own counties, will now serve as county co-chairs for a guaranteed income.

It will be a sister program of Mayors for Guaranteed Incomea network founded in June 2020 that has more than 100 mayors among its members.

Such initiatives have exposed a gap between Republicans and Democrats, with the former calling them a waste of money and the latter believing they will emancipate weaker members of society.

In June 2020, the Mayors for Guaranteed Income network was founded, with more than 100 mayors among its members. This map shows the cities where the mayors are members of the network

“There’s no indication that I see that the American public thinks that what we really need is more help for people who choose not to work,” said Robert Rector, a conservative welfare expert at the Heritage Foundation who helped shape the the welfare changes of the 1990s, he told the Times.

Similarly, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has seen the issue as an opportunity to attack Republican politics.

“These are the same people who didn’t want to expand healthcare and look at the number of people in their communities, these ruby ​​red communities, who are suffering,” Lightfoot said.

“These are the same people, frankly, who are attacking the very core of our democracy, demonizing being different, being the other, based on your religion, your creed, who you love, your gender identity.”

The programs in Chicago, the city and Cook County have been described as “the largest of their kind in the nation” and are part of an effort led by Lightfoot and Preckwinkle to support Illinois’ poorest residents with basic livelihoods. .

One of the programs in Chicago got underway in December, when 3,250 residents began receiving $500 monthly checks and would continue to do so for two years. Another started in August with the same income, but would last a year.

About 91,000 Chicagoans applied in one day and 176,000 in three weeks. The applications were open to certain people in Cook County, in which Chicago is incorporated. It is the second most populous county in Illinois and the second most populous county in the United States.

Applicants had to be at least 18 years old, a Cook County resident and have a household income at or below 250 percent of the federal poverty level, Preckwinkle said regarding the Cook County Promise guaranteed income pilot program. of $42 million.

That meant a one-member household would need to earn less than $33,975 a year and a family of four, $69,375. About 36 percent of households would qualify with such limitations, Preckwinkle said.

Nearly 8 in 10 applicants were women, and three in four were black, Bloomberg informed.

Recipients were given a choice between receiving a prepaid debit card or direct deposit into a bank account and are free to use the money as they see fit.

Chicago has launched an unprecedented guaranteed income scheme that will see 3,200 residents receive $500 a month with no strings attached

The Cook County program launched in December when 3,250 residents began receiving $500 monthly checks and would continue to do so for two years.

I am the mayor of the city of Chicago. I know what our people need,” Lightfoot told the New York Times.

Last August, Lightfoot launched a $31.5 million citywide resilient communities pilot program that selected 5,000 city residents to receive a guaranteed $500 for one year.

Both the Chicago and Cook County schemes were funded by the more than $1 billion the county received from the American Bailout Act, signed by President Joe Biden.

“This was a once-in-a-lifetime moment for us to be bold and innovative,” Brandie Knazze, commissioner of the Chicago Department of Family and Support Services, told the Times.

Preckwinkle took office as Cook County board president in 2010 and ran against Lightfoot as Chicago’s mayoral candidate in 2019.

She told the Times that both Martin Luther King Jr. and the Black Panthers were inspirations for the shows.

King advocated guaranteed income, saying, “I am now convinced that the simplest approach will prove the most effective: the solution to poverty is to abolish it outright by a now widely discussed measure: guaranteed income.”

Preckwinkle also said he hopes guaranteed income could gain ground at the federal level.

“What has happened historically in this country is that these ideas are tested at the local level, in cities, counties and states, and when there is enough momentum, the federal government adopts them,” he said. “So that’s what we expect to happen.”

Lightfoot said the future of such schemes beyond the pilot stage would be determined by an analysis of how they work by the University of Chicago. His research will be informed by surveys, interviews, and economic, labor, criminal, legal, and educational data.