NEWARK, N.J. (WCBS 880) — Newark officials on Tuesday announced a new “guaranteed income” program to give some of the city’s poorest residents some financial help with no strings attached.
Mayor Ras Baraka noted that the new program is about economic justice.
“The system endemically creates poverty and people who will live in poverty and we need this as an opportunity to offset that,” he said.
Newark's guaranteed income program is starting with an initial 30 people, with plans to expand to another 400 by the fall.
“Guaranteed income, unconditionally, gives monthly cash payments to direct individuals with no strings attached [and] no work requirements,” the mayor said.
Participants are set to receive $6,000 dollars a year for two years, and one of them is a man who says he plans to use the money to help him go to college.
“How we'll be spending the money is getting an apartment so my steps toward college will be better, because I will be attending a junior college,” he explains.
Another participant is a woman who says she was depressed and worried about how she was going to pay her bills when the restaurant her husband worked at closed, leaving them with no income.
“I plan on using this money for basic necessities such as paying my electricity bill,” she said through a translator.
Funding for the program came through private donations. Participants have to have an income 200% below the federal poverty line to qualify for the income assistance.
Mayor Baraka says he hopes the pilot program will help dispel stereotypes that recipients will quit their jobs or waste the money.
“The opposite is in fact true, that people use this [money] to invest their lives,” he explained.
He wants Newark to be an example for broader programs at the state or federal level.
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