FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
September 27, 2021
CONTACT:
Melody Webb: mailto:info@mothersoutreachnetwork.org.
The September 25th DC Basic Income March and Rally Celebrated District’s Historic Local Funds for Guaranteed Income Pilot Programs and Other Income Support Programs
(WASHINGTON, DC) – The group D.C. Universal Basic Income Coalition, District residents and advocates held the 2021 DC Basic Income March and Rally on Saturday September 25th to acknowledge an historic year of funding for local income support programs and to urge DC Mayor Muriel Bowser to support guaranteed income for the City. The group sponsoring the March, the DC UBI Coalition, has for several months been organizing an in person and online petition to urge. Mayor Bowser to become a member of the national coalition of mayors, Mayors for a Guaranteed Income. She is one of a few mayors in the DC Metro region that has not done so. The March started at the MLK Memorial on the National Mall and to ended in a rally at DC’s city hall, the Wilson Building. The event showcased DC joining a handful of cities in allocating public funding, $1.5 million, for guaranteed income cash transfer pilots in the aftermath of the extraordinary exacerbation of poverty accelerated by the Coronavirus Pandemic. The speakers included local politicians, non-profit leaders, impacted residents and UBI experts.
Washington is home to one of the earliest and largest cash transfer programs in the country, THRIVE East of the River, a group of four nonprofit organizations, which paid $1,100 monthly for five months to more than 500 DC residents in Wards 7 and 8 after the onset of the Pandemic. But in the FY 2022 local budget, the DC City Council, in a measure sponsored by Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie, carved out a $1.5 million guaranteed income pilot program to be administered by local nonprofits through a process run by the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development. It is historic in its provision of public dollars for monthly payments toward what Councilmember McDuffie’s office calls an initiative to promote racial equity.
According to a 2018 D.C. City Council Budget report, to meet the cost of living an individual needs to earn $36,000 annually, $18 an hour, which is more than the city’s current $15.20 minimum wage. In fact, that report concludes that “it is very difficult for low-income households living in the District to make ends meet.” A 2017 Washington Post article cited a study that found that, “you will still need to earn $80,273 per year to live “comfortably” in our nation’s capital.”. A later, 2019, report found that it takes living in a household raking in nearly $133,000 a year to feel comfortable.
“I’m proud to be an American and yes, I have been a lifelong hospitality worker born from a family of many that were as well. Many American workers, after years of work, reach retirement age unable to have enough to eat, have housing and be assured that they are able to survive! We are grateful for guaranteed income as a cushion to allow us an opportunity to live our days without having to struggle as we currently do” Venorica (“Vee”) Tucker, a life-long hospitality worker born in DC. She will be speaking at the Rally portion of the event!
“It is time to come together to fight for the resources our ancestors and elders earned a long time ago.” – Maurice Cook, Executive Director and Lead Organizer, Serve Your City – Ward 6 Mutual Aid.
“Guaranteed Income is no longer an option. It’s a necessity. Too many people have suffered at the hands of this exploitative economic system and it’s time we create alternatives that put people over profit” – JoJo Morinvil, ONE DC Black Workers & Wellness Center organizer, another member of the group organizing the March.
“With the investment of $1.5 million into a guaranteed income pilot program the city has planted a seedling. Our advocacy seeks to grow this into a large-scale program that lifts up every single DC worker and resident living in the trenches of poverty. Traditional safety net programs exclude too many already marginalized groups – mothers who are fighting to reunify with children in the foster care system (who become ineligible for their benefits after these separations) and single and childless adults who are not eligible for disability or Social Security benefits. An adequately funded guaranteed basic income initiative would lift those who are struggling the most.” said Melody Webb, Executive Director of Mother’s Outreach Network and a founding member of the DC Universal Basic Coalition. Webb added “The funding that has been approved for pilots in DC, if expanded, can be a game changer for women, particularly Black women and mothers, who are getting walloped most of all by the coronavirus’ economic and health impacts.”
Guaranteed income was widely debated during the Nixon Administration, and Black activists from welfare rights organizer Johnnie Tillmon to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. linked it to the struggle for racial economic equality. More recently Stockton, California Mayor Michael Tubbs and Springboard to Opportunities CEO Aisha Nyandoro forged its return to national prominence by giving cash payments to lower-income residents and saw promising results.
The group also celebrated the Council’s passage of an historic new expanded DC Earned Income Tax Credit match program and the landmark Building Child Wealth Act “baby bonds” legislation.
