cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16376684

To fight poverty, some Texas cities gave aid with no strings attached. Conservatives are pushing back.

Guaranteed income programs let participants use funds however they see fit. Critics argue they’re not a good use of taxpayer dollars.

Guaranteed income programs have become more popular since the pandemic as dozens of cities across the country launched pilot programs using federal COVID-19 relief funds. Whereas other welfare funds like food stamps and housing vouchers provide assistance for specific expenses, guaranteed income programs allow recipients to decide how they spend the money. Researchers have found them to be an effective way to combat poverty.

In recent years, a handful of Texas cities and counties have piloted their own guaranteed income programs for low-income households. Financed by a combination of federal, local and philanthropic funds, Austin, San Antonio and El Paso County have collectively issued about $9 million in payments to roughly 1,500 households since 2020.

But the notion is facing stiff opposition from conservatives who say these programs are a bad use of taxpayers’ money and amount to government overreach. Attorney General Ken Paxton recently sued Harris County to block its guaranteed income program, Uplift Harris. The Texas Supreme Court indefinitely paused the pilot while the case goes to trial. Financed by funds from the American Rescue Plan Act, the program would have provided almost 2,000 households in the area’s poorest neighborhoods with $500 a month for 18 months.

  • Telorand
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    edit-2
    20 days ago

    Lest you forget, cruelty is the point, no matter what they say.

    They don’t care about taxes “being used correctly,” because they are sitting on one of the biggest slush funds in the entire US, and they couldn’t possibly be bothered to actually use it to better the lives of Texans. /s

    ETA: These kinds of guaranteed income programs always work, no matter where they’re deployed. $500/mo isn’t enough for anyone to just grift off the system for long at all, and most want to be self-sufficient anyway. If the point or effect of poverty programs isn’t to pull people out of poverty, then you’re doing it wrong (or in the case of Conservatives, the system is working as intended).