No Strings Attached: Can Guaranteed Income Offer A Dignified Path Out Of Poverty?

Natasha Oglesby speaking at the 2025 Mayday rally. Photo by the author 

It’s been six months since thousands of Philadelphians gathered outside City Hall for the annual May Day rally, commemorating International Workers’ Day. Yet one speaker’s testimony still echoes today.

“I was recently evicted from my home a day before my birthday,” SEIU 32BJ member Natasha Oglesby told the crowd. “It is extremely mentally draining to be living like this. My life is a constant reminder of what I can’t do because of the money I don’t have.” She pointed out that Pennsylvania’s minimum wage has been frozen at $7.25 for fifteen years, adding, “PA is lagging behind all others when the constitution is right down the street.”

Oglesby’s story captures the reality of thousands of Philadelphians who struggle to make ends meet. The gap she described between what workers earn and what it actually costs to live in the city is reflected in the data: according to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, a single adult in Philadelphia must earn $23.36 an hour to cover basic expenses — more than three times the current minimum wage.

National figures reveal a similar picture. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that 11.1% of people in the United States lived in poverty in 2023, while a 2024 Dayforce Institute report estimates that 44% of workers nationwide earn less than a livable wage. With most safety-net programs designed for those living below the official poverty line, millions of people like Oglesby are caught in between: earning too much to qualify for aid, but far too little to build stability or plan for the future. 

As the current administration moves to scale back key benefits like SNAP and healthcare subsidies, the nation’s already fragile safety net is beginning to fall apart. The result is a widening crisis that threatens both those who depend on public assistance to survive and those who have never qualified for it but still struggle to afford basic needs.

One proposed solution is gaining traction in cities across the country. Guaranteed income: direct, unconditional cash payments designed to help people meet their needs with dignity and agency.

Dolly Parton and the third wave of guaranteed income 

While guaranteed income (GI) has been gaining traction in recent years, it’s far from a new idea. “The concept of unconditional cash, or guaranteed income, has been discussed since the birth of our democracy,” explains Dr. Amy Castro, cofounder and faculty director of the Center for Guaranteed Income Research at the University of Pennsylvania.

In his 1797 pamphlet Agrarian Justice, Thomas Paine argued that people deprived of access to land (and therefore to food and livelihood) were owed compensation funded through taxes on landowners. Since then, the idea has resurfaced in three major waves, the latest beginning in the mid-2010s.

“The first person to begin experimenting with cash in this third wave was actually Dolly Parton, believe it or not,” says Castro. In response to a devastating 2016 wildfire in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, Parton launched the “My People Fund,” which provided $1,000 a month for six months to families who lost their homes.

From there, the movement expanded rapidly, especially during the pandemic. Between 2020 and 2021, the federal government distributed 476 million payments totaling $814 billion in emergency relief to households impacted by COVID-19. 

“Unconditional cash was a quick way to get money into the hands of people and stabilize households,” says Castro, noting that this period served as a catalyst for the modern GI movement. “It was an amazing moment where philanthropy and government came together simultaneously and kicked off a massive wave of experimentation. We went from just three pilot programs in the U.S. to over 150.”

Emerging guaranteed income (GI) initiatives across the country are beginning to show how financial stability can influence multiple aspects of people’s lives. The Basic Income Guaranteed: Los Angeles Economic Assistance Pilot (BIG:LEAP), launched in 2021, provided 3,200 households living in deep poverty with $1,000 per month in unconditional cash payments for 12 months. The program’s findings suggest that regular, unconditional cash can have effects beyond financial security. 

“We saw a reduction in the severity and frequency of intimate partner violence among people in the treatment group compared to the control,” said Dr. Castro. “We haven’t had a finding like that in the United States since 1979.”

In Philadelphia, the first GI initiative of this new era was the Guaranteed Income and Financial Treatment Trial (GIFT-T), which provides $500 to $1,000 per month and financial counseling for one year to cancer patients. The program aims to improve patients’ quality of life and therefore chances of survival. Since then, several programs have followed, targeting a wide range of populations: PHLHousing+, for example, provides rent assistance to 300 previously selected residents for 2.5 years; while Philly Joy Bank provides $1,000 per month to a pilot group of 250 women from the second trimester of pregnancy through a child’s first birthday.

photo courtesy of Philly Joy Bank

Generocity spoke with two additional Philadelphia programs, Xiente’s Prosperity Project and The Welcome Table at St. James School. While Xiente’s program is already providing direct cash assistance, The Welcome Table’s GI program is set to start providing cash assistance in January 2026, with organizers sharing how they’ve designed it to meet the needs of their community members.

“I don’t want to fix the safety net. I want people to move from poverty.” 

In the heart of Norris Square, Xiente, formerly the Norris Square Community Alliance (NSCA), has been helping Philadelphians achieve economic mobility for more than 40 years. In November 2024, after a year of research, the organization launched the Prosperity Project, an ambitious pilot program designed to move families out of poverty through flexible, personalized support. The only requirement for participation, as stated on Xiente’s website, is simple: “any family ready to set goals and work toward economic mobility.”

“The first requirement that we ask is, ‘Do you want to prosper?’” said Dr. Michelle Carrera Morales, Xiente’s Executive Director, during a panel at the Women’s Way 2025 Gender Wealth Summit. Dr. Carrera explained that traditional safety net and case management programs often keep people trapped in cycles of dependency. The Prosperity Project, she said, aims to offer something different.

“I don’t want to fix the safety net. I want people to move from poverty. I want to eradicate poverty,” she said. 

Xiente’s sense of urgency is grounded in the stark realities of the communities it serves. According to the organization’s Theory of Change document, 15.9% of children in the United States live below the poverty line, a figure that rises to 31.5% in Philadelphia. In Xiente’s service area (zip codes 19122, 19133, 19134, and 19140), the situation is even more dire, with 52% of families with children under 18 living in poverty. Although more recent 2023 data reflects some progress, the overall picture remains largely unchanged. 

“For us,” says Dr. Carrera, “the experiment is finding an alternative to help people move out of poverty faster than the current system allows.”

Once enrolled, participants attend a day-long Economic Mobility Retreat, where they learn about Xiente’s Theory of Change and the structural forces that shape economic mobility. “Part of the intention,” says Dr. Carrera, “is for families to get to know each other and become a support network.”

Beyond shared learning, the Prosperity Project focuses on two key areas: economic opportunity — connecting families to education, workforce, and entrepreneurship pathways, and social connection — helping participants build networks that make those opportunities more accessible.

After the retreat, families enter an assessment phase to identify their goals and needs. “We want them to have that sense of agency, to determine, what is it that I need?” says Dr. Carrera. Each family codesigns their own plan. “Not every family comes in saying, ‘I want to buy a house,’” she explains. “Some say, ‘I want to take my first vacation,’ or ‘I’m a single mom and need help finding after-school programs for my kids.’” 

After completing their assessment, each participant is paired with an Economic Mobility Concierge, a role intentionally different from traditional case managers. 

“Whatever you need to prosper, this person is here to help you,” says Dr. Carrera. “They serve you the same way a concierge would serve a wealthy person.” The Economic Mobility Concierges, for example, support by calling multiple daycares to find the right one for their client’s children, or looking up education opportunities for their client to choose from. 

“It’s a shift from transactional government-style services to a transformational, client-led relationship,” says Dr. Carrera.

So far, 184 individuals have enrolled, with a goal of reaching 500 participants. Some also qualify for affordable housing through Xiente’s Mi Casa Initiative, which provides quality units without Section 8 vouchers, and a $500 monthly guaranteed income for selected families. 

The early results are promising. “The results that we’re seeing with the group that is getting housing, is getting a basic guaranteed income and the concierge is outstanding,” says Dr. Carrera, noting that in six months, families saw credit scores increase by 60 points, and some families who started with zero savings now have $6,000. Having stable housing and income allowed for others to start pursuing master’s degrees and renegotiating salaries. “They’re blazing through their goals and their goals are picked by them.”

“It’s not a silver bullet”: GI in tandem with, not in place of, existing services

Since 2019, The Welcome Table at St. James School has provided residents of the Allegheny West community with a wide range of support, from a no-cost farmers market to classes in computer skills, financial literacy, creative writing, cooking, and wellness. The program also offers small home repairs, reflecting its mission to support its community in accessing the resources they need to have a high-quality life. 

“We just try to engage the whole person through our programming,” says Paul Barrett, Director of The Welcome Table.

In recent years, Barrett and his team have sought to take a more direct approach to addressing the root causes of the challenges their neighbors face. 

“We started asking ourselves, ‘What would it look like for us to more directly address the conditions, at least to the extent that we can, that are driving folks to us?’” he explains. While the Welcome Table fosters community connection, financial insecurity remains one of the biggest reasons residents seek support. “You spend a lot of time engaging with neighbors and you start hearing the same themes over and over,” Barrett says, noting this is what led them to explore a guaranteed income program.

Barrett, along with his colleague Hana Jemaneh, is leading the design of the Guaranteed Income Pilot, which is currently accepting applications through November 1, 2025. After a randomized lottery, ten residents aged 62 or older who meet eligibility criteria will begin receiving $500 per month for one year starting January 2026. “I’d love for that number to be 10x,” Barrett says, expressing hope that additional funding will allow the program to grow. For now, it is supported through the organization’s general operating funds. “My hope is that we continue investing in efforts that strengthen economic mobility,” he adds.

To qualify, applicants must be 62 or older, live within the program’s catchment area (South of Abbotsford Ave., North of York St., East of Ridge Ave., and West of 17th St.), and have a household income at or below $32,061. These parameters were shaped with guidance from mentors such as Nia Coaxum, Program Manager from the Philly Joy Bank, and the Center for Guaranteed Income Research at the University of Pennsylvania. 

“One key piece of advice we heard repeatedly was: focus on a population you know well,” Barrett says, noting that seniors make up a large portion of their regular participants. The income threshold was determined based on the median household income in the zip codes that The Welcome Table serves.

Once participants are selected, they will complete surveys before, during, and after the program to evaluate how monthly payments affect their quality of life across various dimensions. While the program is still in its early stages, Barrett and his team have followed best practices identified by researchers like Dr. Amy Castro, who emphasizes that successful GI programs require “clarity around the fact that it’s unconditional.” She also stresses the importance of ensuring participants do not lose access to other benefits and that community voices are included in program design, “so you understand where the pitfalls might be in implementation.”

Barrett is optimistic but realistic about what guaranteed income can accomplish. “There’s no silver bullet that wraps all this up,” he says. “Money doesn’t solve everything, but it helps raise a person’s floor so they can more effectively address other challenges in their lives.”

Dr. Castro echoes that perspective. “People can sometimes get almost too excited and treat it [guaranteed income] like it’s a silver bullet for structural injustice, and it’s not,” she says. “It needs to work in tandem with structural adjustments like having access to affordable housing, for instance, having access to paid family leave. It’s an individual intervention that oftentimes really serves to highlight the flaws in our economy.”

Both Barrett and Dr. Carrera recognize that reality. Their programs combine guaranteed income with other types of support, like Xiente’s Mi Casa Initiative and The Welcome Table’s farmers market and home repair program, ensuring that their communities have both immediate relief and more long-term pathways to stability.

Meeting the moment: Limitations and opportunities 

When asked about the limitations of their programs, both Dr. Carrera and Barrett pointed to one key challenge: funding. 

“The project will be the size of the funding that we’re able to pursue,” said Dr. Carrera, noting that funders’ priorities are increasingly being pulled in multiple directions. “The priorities of funders are being pulled in different ways because of what is happening, and the loss of federal funding.”

The shortage of funding not only limits the scale of these programs but also undermines the research needed to evaluate their long-term impact. “We have not seen, neither in our center nor in anybody else’s work, changes in health and well-being or durable improvements in economic mobility with short-term or lump-sum payments,” explains Dr. Castro. “It typically takes a minimum of six months of recurring payments to start to see change.” 

While researchers hope to one day determine the ideal duration for guaranteed income programs, right now those decisions are dictated largely by available funding. “We actually don’t know yet what the optimum duration is for unconditional cash experiments,” she adds.

Despite the dire landscape, as safety net programs that sustain families, even with all their flaws, are being dismantled, this moment also presents a critical opportunity to reimagine how people are supported. 

“It’s more important now than ever that the philanthropic community, especially foundations and individuals, begin to line up, to test, and to support programs like this one, as the social safety net crumbles,” says Dr. Carrera. “If the safety net is no longer as strong as before, can we then try different approaches?”

Barrett agrees that just as his organization chose to address systemic issues more directly, funders could also take bolder steps. “We have more than our fair share, in this city and nationally, of workforce development and educational attainment programs. And I think those are great and need support. But we also need more effort on this side of things, really proposing a direct approach,” he says.

In addition to funding, advocates emphasize the need to shift cultural narratives about poverty and the people experiencing it. The stigma surrounding financial hardship and the shame attached to seeking help continues to shape public attitudes and policy decisions. 

“There is so much shame and blame associated with needing help,” says Dr. Castro. “The economy is set up in such a way that marginalized people cannot meet their needs, and then we shame and blame them for accessing the safety net when they do.”

Barrett has witnessed similar reactions. “It creates cognitive dissonance for folks who are informed by our very ‘bootstraps’, ‘earn-your-way’ mentality,” he explains. Confronted with ideas like guaranteed income, people are forced to ask themselves, “What are the appropriate solutions to poverty? What are the appropriate responses to financial insecurity?”

Dr. Carrera believes this moment calls for deep introspection about the kind of economic system we want to sustain. “We cannot study a new economic system until we study our own individual values,” she says. 

Her invitation: “

Let’s think individually, let’s sit down with ourselves and say, do I really care about our poverty? How do I contribute or how do I alleviate it? What am I willing to do to live in a society where no one goes to bed hungry, and what am I willing to do to live in a society where everyone has the opportunity to access the wealth and the things that I’m able to access?”