A Texas county plans to give low-income residents in the Houston area $500 a month as part of a universal basic income plan
Paul Souders
- Harris County in Texas, which includes Houston, plans to give low-income residents $500 a month.
- The county is using $20.5 million of COVID-19 relief to fund the program.
- Harris County says similar programs have shown "wide-ranging" social and financial benefits.
A county in Texas is planning to give residents monthly payments to combat economic inequity, a plan that it says has worked in other states.
"Uplift Harris" is a guaranteed monthly income program that provides eligible households with $500 a month for up to 18 months, according to the county's website.
Harris County, which includes Houston, has one of the highest rates of economic inequity in the country. Over 16% of its residents live below the poverty line, according to government data.
"For many Harris County households, a small monthly infusion of unconditional cash can make the difference between stability and deep poverty," the county says on its website.
Similar universal basic income programs around 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 says.
In 2022, Denver gave people monthly payments ranging from $50 a month to $1,000 a month, Business Insider previously reported. One study from the University of Denver's Center for Housing and Homelessness Research found that the program dramatically reduced visible homelessness.
When the initiative in Denver began, about 6% of the people in the $1,000-a-month group said they were sleeping outside, but that number fell to zero in just six months, according to the researchers.
Another UBI program in two counties in California offered about 100 homeless people $750 a month for a year. Recipients were less likely to be unhoused and said they were able to afford most of their basic needs after just six months, BI previously reported.
Many other places in the United States are also experimenting with a universal basic income. Baltimore is giving young parents $1,000 a month, no strings attached. It's a deal so good some recipients thought it was a scam, BI reported.
In Harris County, officials are using more than $20 million of federal COVID-19 relief — part of the American Rescue Plan Act — to fund the Uplift Harris project.
Two groups of people in Harris County will be eligible for the payments — those who live in areas with the highest poverty rates and those who receive aid under ACCESS, another county program that supports vulnerable populations.
More than 2,000 households will be eligible to receive payments from the program when applications open in January, according to Houston Public Media.
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