‘A lifeline’: Why Durham County will soon give its poorest families up to $850 a month
Durham County will experiment with providing a guaranteed, basic income for families, leaders agreed this week.
The county will give $750 a month — no strings attached — to low-income families and another $100 for participation in a monthly survey so researchers can see how it’s working.
County Commissioner Nida Allam called it “a lifeline.”
“We know that so many families are one emergency away from financial catastrophe,” Allam told The News & Observer in an interview. “Working multiple jobs to support their family and the bills continue to pile up because the cost of living keeps going up.”
The Board of County Commissioners unanimously passed the measure Monday night.
“Children can’t thrive if their parents aren’t thriving,” Chair Brenda Howerton said earlier this month. “I think about raising four children as a single parent. It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t easy.”
Who qualifies?
The county expects to select 125 people to receive $850 a month and 125 people to receive $100 for participating in studies researchers can use to evaluate the pilot.
Families making 30% of the area’s median income can participate. The county will take applications later this year.
“You don’t have to be part of our system. You don’t have to already be receiving benefits. We want everyone who is eligible to look at applying for the program,” Durham County Chief of Staff Shannon Trapp said.
The federal government sets income limits according to household size. In Durham and Chapel Hill, 30% AMI is:
- For two people: $24,300
- For three people: $27,350
- For four people: $30,350
- For five people: $32,800
Allam hopes the income limit will grow.
“I would love to see it expand,” she said. “Even if you’re not in the lowest income bracket, folks are still struggling.”
The county will seek out a partner to administer the program, which they’ve nicknamed DCo Thrives. They have a tentative launch date of Oct. 26.
Durham’s second guaranteed income experiment
It will be the second guaranteed, basic income experiment in Durham, after the city gave money to formerly incarcerated people beginning last year.
The city worked with the nonprofit StepUp on its guaranteed income pilot, called Excel.
Excel was for people who had recently been released from prison and had an income below 60% of the area’s median income. The 109 participants received $600 a month for a year, ending in February.
The typical participant was a 41-year-old African-American man with one child, according to demographic data maintained by the Guaranteed Income Pilots Dashboard. They had a median annual income of $8,769, the city reported.
The city received grants and donations to pay for Excel, largely from Mayors for Guaranteed Income. (Durham County joined its offshoot Counties for Guaranteed Income when it launched this spring.)
Mayor Pro Tem Mark-Anthony Middleton helped ensure the city set aside $1 million in this year’s budget to do another guaranteed basic income experiment. The details are being worked out now.
The county’s pilot will cost about $1.7 million. It is using grant money the federal government channeled to local governments for pandemic recovery under the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).
The Stanford Basic Income Lab counts 45 active experiments in the United States.
The Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians has the only active program in North Carolina. It has shared casino revenue with enrolled members of the tribe since 1996.
This story was originally published August 17, 2023 at 10:27 AM with the headline "‘A lifeline’: Why Durham County will soon give its poorest families up to $850 a month."
