The City of Boulder Releases Interim Evaluation Report for Guaranteed Income Pilot Project

The city is testing a two-year guaranteed income pilot program to provide low-income households with unconditional cash stipends. While the project is only eight months old, the results have been positive. Does this mean that the city will approve a basic income program once the two-year project is over? Could this program help the homeless situation in Boulder County? 

It’s no secret that times are tough. With a rising cost of living and stagnant salaries, more and more American families cannot afford necessities like food and housing. The Financial Health Pulse 2024 U.S. Trends Report found that 70% of American households remain financially unhealthy, with day-to-day financial realities becoming harder to maintain. The U.S. Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey for 2024 revealed that 36.4% of households reported having a very difficult time paying their usual household expenses, and the people in Boulder County were more so. 

According to BestPlaces’ cost-of-living calculator, Boulder County’s cost of living is 41% higher than the national average and 17% higher than the Colorado average. What does this look like for the average family in Boulder County? The calculator suggests that in order to live comfortably, families need to earn at least $15,930 per month, a staggering 195% more expensive than the national average. 

Source: BestPlaces

One of the biggest factors driving up the cost of living in Boulder County is a lack of affordable housing. BestPlaces reports that a typical home in Boulder County is 194.9% more expensive than the national average, and renting a two-bedroom unit in Boulder costs 44.1% more than the national average. So, someone working full-time earning minimum wage, roughly $32,600, will struggle to afford housing that is 30% of their salary, as this is what the city considers “affordable housing.” 

To help families struggling to pay for housing and utilities, the City of Boulder launched Elevate at the beginning of 2024. The project offered 200 Boulder households a stipend of $500 per month for the next two years with no strings attached. Housing and Human Services Deputy Director Elizabeth Crowe revealed why the project was created.

“We see the increased need in our community as a result of COVID-19 and the rising costs of living. We believe in the transformative power of direct cash assistance and look forward to seeing its positive impact on participants and our community as a whole,”  Crowe said. 

To qualify for the project, participants had to be at least 18 years old, have experienced hardship due to COVID-19, and have an annual income between 30% and 60% of Boulder’s median income, around $30,000 to $60,000. From there, applicants were chosen via a lottery system, and the consulting firm Omni Institute, which helped manage the process, revealed that most of the applicants were families. 

The idea of a guaranteed basic income is not new and has been discussed by experts worldwide for years, whether it’s helping or not. 13 countries and 16 U.S. states are implementing basic income programs to reduce poverty with positive results. 

Shafeka Hashash, associate director of guaranteed income at the Economic Security Project, explained, “Everything is showing that these families are able to pay bills, switch careers, save for the future, spend time with their kids.”  

In the first eight months of the Elevate project, Crowe was pleased to announce that “participants are seeing significant improvements in household food security, mental health, and their ability to pay for basic needs like rent and utilities.” 

With high housing costs comes another problem: homelessness. Despite idyllic neighborhoods and picturesque landscapes, Boulder County is facing crisis levels of homelessness. In 2023, the city conducted a Point-in-Time (PIT) count that showed 727 people in Boulder County were experiencing homelessness in January 2024. However, the real number is likely much higher since unhoused people living in temporary shelters, vehicles, or short-term rentals were not included. 

Some critics are not convinced basic income programs are the solution to homelessness. Two of the biggest arguments against these kinds of projects are funding and political will. While private donors fund some projects and research grants, most are federally funded, like Boulder’s Elevate. The income project received $3 million of the $20.15 million in federal funds the city received from Biden’s economic relief package, the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). Critics are concerned about the potential impact on taxpayers. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton called the Guaranteed Basic-Income Pilot in Harris County unconstitutional. 

Despite concerns about whether these programs could raise taxes, multiple cities in the U.S. have implemented these programs and seen positive results, particularly Michael Tubbs’s project. Tubbs is the former mayor of Stockton, California, and founded the massively successful Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration, or SEED. The program ran for 18 months, beginning in February of 2019. During this period, 125 people in neighborhoods at or below Stockton’s median household income received an unconditional monthly stipend of $500.

Tubbs revealed to Yellow Scene Magazine that the outcome of the Stockton program far exceeded his expectations, saying, “The results were even more significant than we expected–guaranteed income had a positive effect on all these dimensions–and it turned Stockton into a national story.”

He added, “The biggest lesson we learned is that people can be trusted with money. People aren’t poor because they can’t manage money. It is because they don’t have enough money to manage.” 

The study on the project revealed that by relieving participants of financial hardships, the income program created “new opportunities for self-determination, choice, goal-setting, and risk-taking.” One participant of the program revealed that the program was a lifeline. In an interview with NPR, a participant referred to as ‘Laura’ said, “Before SEED came along, I was paying a lot of bills and didn’t know how I was gonna eat,” and added, “It’s like being able to breathe.”  

Other successful programs that offered much-needed relief for struggling participants were Alabama’s Guaranteed Basic Income program, which gave 110 single mothers $375 a month for a year, and the Denver Basic Income Project (DBIP). DBIP gave participants a lump sum of $1000 per month. According to their website, the project has provided $10.8 million to over 800 unhoused people in Denver. 

The participants themselves can see the success of these income projects. One participant in the Elevate Boulder project said, “Before I was accepted into this program, I was struggling really hard to make ends meet. The extra $500 per month has changed my life for the better in ways that are impossible to describe.” 

Tubbs told YS that over 70 guaranteed income pilot projects are happening across the country. Many of them have “ended, and a full research report has been published, and the results mirror what we [Stockton project] found.”  

Source: Stanford Basic Income Lab

Could Elevate Boulder be an answer to the city’s homeless problem? Boulder County is experiencing soaring homelessness due to people’s inability to afford housing. A study conducted by the San Francisco nonprofit Miracle Messages and the University of Southern California Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work tested whether this project could solve homelessness.

One hundred homeless people in Los Angeles County and San Francisco Bay were given $750 a month for a year. Ben Henwood from the project told Business Insider, “We ended up seeing the unsheltered numbers dropping pretty quickly in the experimental group that was getting the income.” The 30% of unsheltered participants at the start of the trial dropped to 12% by six months, so the project does have the potential to help reduce homelessness levels. 

Tubbs agrees that guaranteed income programs have the potential to decrease homelessness, explaining to Yellow Scene Magazine, “Denver’s cash program for people experiencing homelessness actually led to cost savings for the city due to less reliance on emergency services. We’re seeing that guaranteed income meets a lot of different needs precisely because cash is so flexible.” 

With the Elevate Boulder project and others across the country achieving successful results, will Boulder City permanently implement something like this? According to CPR News, Crowe feels that while the city has not determined whether it will move from pilot to permanent, after seeing the report, she hopes the program will be extended for more than two years.

This will depend on political will, which Tubbs believes is the only real barrier. He explains, “We need elected leaders who are willing to lean in and say, ‘You know what doesn’t work? The way we’ve been trying to address poverty.’” He adds, “People in government don’t need to know how to solve every single problem; we can do a lot better by getting out of the way and giving people the money they need to do what’s best for them.”   

Tubbs had a message for states and municipalities considering whether guaranteed income would work: “The answer is yes. There’s no question that guaranteed income will improve people’s lives. It’s just a question of building the political will to get the cash into their hands.”  

So, it’s clear that a guaranteed income can help more people afford housing, but it’s not a solution on its own. Even Tubbs agrees, “A guaranteed income would not solve every problem,” but he believes it sets the right foundation to help and “help us begin to alleviate poverty. And I think it would improve people’s trust in the government to meaningfully address social problems and create better safety and stability for us all.”

In addition to basic income programs, tackling the county’s affordable housing crisis and removing inhumane camping bans are necessary steps to making Boulder County more equitable to all of its citizens.