Residents of Texas' Harris County could find themselves hundreds of dollars better off each month as part of a program to address income inequality in the area.
The Uplift Harris County Cash Assistance Pilot program will provide a selection of county households with $500 per month for 18 months.
The effort is part of a guaranteed-income pilot program funded by 2021's federal American Rescue Plan Act to "address economic inequity and reduce poverty," according to the county's website. It is being enacted in response to the recent coronavirus pandemic, which the program says "magnified many long-standing health and economic inequities in the community."
Guaranteed-income pilot programs have been tested across numerous U.S. states in recent years. Payments per month vary, with some participants receiving as much as $1,000 per month in Los Angeles and Baltimore and others getting more modest amounts elsewhere.
"Despite the area's vast prosperity, Harris County has among the highest rates of economic inequity in the country, with 16.4 percent of residents living in poverty," the county's website says. "Among other issues, the COVID-19 pandemic and economic inflation have magnified these inequities."
Newsweek has contacted Harris County Public Health for comment via email.
The money is not a loan, with no requirement to pay any part of the sum back. "Similar programs across the country have shown that direct cash assistance programs deliver wide-ranging social and financial benefits for participating families and the broader community," the county website says.
Becoming part of the program has certain requirements, including income and geographical eligibility. There are two cohorts that candidates can apply for: one based on geographic location and the other through membership in the state's Accessing Coordinated Care and Empowering Self-Sufficiency program. Eligible applicants must be 18 and over and will be randomly selected for both cohorts.
The program is similar to the concept of universal basic income, which has been tried in various countries and is given to individuals and families regardless of their income. This means some wealthy people also benefit from no-strings-attached payments.
"Universal basic income [UBI] is probably best conceived as a floor to stand on, not as a safety net," said Fabian Wendt, an assistant professor at the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
"A safety net is only meant to catch you when you need it, which requires some institution to test whether you really need it, and that opens up all these worries about paternalism, bureaucracy and so on, whereas the UBI would be a floor to stand on for everybody," he said in an article on the university's website.
During the pandemic, the federal government sent direct relief money to Americans, some of which is still being paid out today.
Wendt said that many might interpret UBI as "a waste of money on the wealthy."
He continued: "Why should all of those wealthy people get a monthly check? If the goal is to do something about poverty, then why UBI since the rich by definition are not poor? That's an understandable concern for sure. But the reply there is that depending on how the UBI is financed, the rich will not be net beneficiaries. They will contribute more to finance the UBI than what they get as their monthly check."
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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