- A guaranteed-basic-income program in Austin gave people $1,000 a month for a year.
- Most of the participants spent the no-strings-attached cash on housing, a study found.
- Participants who said they could afford a balanced meal also increased by 17%.
A guaranteed-basic-income plan in one of Texas’ largest cities reduced rates of housing insecurity. But some Texas lawmakers are not happy.
Austin was the first city in Texas to launch a tax-payer-funded guaranteed-income program when the Austin Guaranteed Income Pilot kicked off in May 2022. The program served 135 low-income families, each receiving $1,000 monthly. Funding for 85 families came from the City of Austin, while philanthropic donations funded the other 50.
The program was billed as a means to boost people out of poverty and help them afford housing. “We know that if we trust people to make the right decisions for themselves and their families, it leads to better outcomes,” the city says on its website. “It leads to better jobs, increased savings, food security, housing security.”
While the program ended in August 2023, a new study from the Urban Institute, a Washington, DC, think tank, found that the city’s program did, in fact, help its participants pay for housing and food. On average, program participants reported spending more than half of the cash they received on housing, the report said.
$1000 a month wouldn’t even begin to help cover the cost of basic housing in Utah, I’m not sure what the situation is in Austin. I made a good salary but still wasn’t able to afford a single bedroom apartment in Salt Lake, and now that rent has gone way up here, nobody can. In fact most former renters are now on the street.
Nobody in Utah can afford a house if they didn’t already own one. Because of the outrageous prices, all the homebuyers are out of state millionaires who buy up property to rent out to other rich couples.
Maybe we should all move to Austin, if only they’d move Austin out of Texas and into a better state.
You’re about a decade and a half too late on that idea. Austin is crumbling under the massive weight of newcomers (mostly tech). Housing, rent, traffic, you name it. It’s no longer the haven of good jobs and cheaper living that it was 15 - 20 years ago.
I’ve read about that and all the influx of newcomers into Austin. It’s the exact same here in Salt Lake (of all places). Young people are moving here in droves, I think mostly because there’s tons of low-paying jobs available. That is - the jobs SEEM not all that low paying until you look at the astronomical rent and housing prices here. (IN SALT LAKE, OF ALL GOD FORSAKEN PLACES!!!).