Viral cash: Basic income trials, policy mutation, and post-austerity politics in U.S. cities

Abstract

During the covid-19 pandemic, basic income pilot programs spread across U.S. cities like the novel coronavirus itself. The policy of no-strings-attached cash transfers marks a potentially significant change in the development of post-austerity politics, but only if basic income programs can endure beyond their trial phase. This paper centers the phenomenon of viral cash—cash transfer programs that mutate and multiply like the coronavirus to which they respond—as a means of assessing the possible pathways from trial programs to standing policy. Drawing on case studies of pilot programs in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Denver, I argue that basic income pilots extend beyond their end-date by creating individual and institutional constituencies invested in unconditional cash transfers. Focusing on these constituencies draws attention to basic income’s role in popularizing child tax credits, program cash stipends and other policy reforms recently enacted by cities and states. Seen this way, basic income’s virus-like susceptibility to mutation plays a key role in seeding support for urban policies and politics that counter prior austerity by centering investment in human capacity.

Seeding policy: Viral cash and the diverse trajectories of basic income in the United States

“…Many programme administrators interviewed by the author have drawn on their experience with basic income to add cash, simplify eligibility or broaden access to other public programmes. Furthermore, municipal equity offices and other personnel overseeing basic income programmes have used their position to install additional trials, establish spin-off programmes and unite community organizations with donors willing to support basic income (Doussard, 2023). More ambitiously, members of the national policy entrepreneurship network providing model policies and analysis for basic income trials have organized to win follow-up state-level legislation expanding means-tested cash transfers (Ahmad and Landry, 2023).…”

“…More ambitiously, members of the national policy entrepreneurship network providing model policies and analysis for basic income trials have organized to win follow-up state-level legislation expanding means-tested cash transfers (Ahmad and Landry, 2023). In short, no direct pathway for converting basic income trials into universal basic income exists, but municipal basic income pilots lead some existing social programmes to look and act more like basic income (Doussard, 2023).…”

“…This, in turn, provides specific pathways to future expansion. Most notably, Colorado instituted a permanent, refundable tax credit for low-income families in the 2023 legislative session, establishing a permanent transfer that many of those involved attribute to the visibility of basic income (Doussard, 2023).…”

“…For example, Cook County, the 5.2 million‐resident jurisdiction dominated by the city of Chicago, used a portion of its CARES Act funds to make USD 600 payments to more than 13,500 households (Yin, 2022). The City of St. Paul, Minnesota, went further, developing its own one‐time cash‐payment programme (“Bridge Funds for Families”) while Congress negotiated the CARES Act, then using CARES Act Funds to launch a large basic income trial programme (“The Peoples’ Prosperity Pilot”) in September 2020 (Doussard, 2023).…”