Westside Story Newspaper – Online The News of The Empire – Sharing the Quest for Excellence
By Joe W. Bowers Jr. and Edward Henderson | California Black Media
Los Angeles County Supervisor Holly Mitchell and state Assemblymember Matt Haney (D-San Francisco) recently traveled to Kenya to study a universal income program the country utilizes to support one of its most impoverished regions. The goal is to see if a similar program could benefit California residents as well.
In the towns of Kisumu County, Kenya that they visited, residents have received $25 a month for the past five years as part of the world’s largest guaranteed income project. GiveDirectly, the non-profit funding the $30M initiative, disburses millions of dollars to 20,000 individuals residing in 295 villages across the Western and Rift Valley regions of Kenya.
While a similar program in California would look vastly different due to the wide-ranging incomes found in the state, Mitchell and Haney were inspired by aspects of the project. The mobile money distribution system that villagers use allows individuals to receive cash transfers via mobile phone apps without being connected to a bank.
“Cash performs better than some of the other critical services that we in government prioritize,” Mitchell told the LA Times. “We create this cliff effect: if people do what we ask them to do like go to school or get a raise, then we drop them from the social safety net. My dream is for us to rethink the way we administer these programs and create a culture shift and cut some of the red tape.”
Existing programs in California are limited and in early development stages but have been met with support from the Legislature.
