Philly to pilot a guaranteed income experiment, giving cash to some needy residents

[BumRushDaShow]

2. Well per the article, there will be programs initiated that do just what you are saying

(probably should have sniped a part and added the excerpt) -

In addition to the funds, Philadelphia’s WorkReady initiative, in partnership between the Office of Community Empowerment and Opportunity and JEVS Human Services, will also provide “case management, coaching, licensed counseling, and peer to peer experiences to develop a career pathway,” according to an executive summary shared by the City of Philadelphia. Owens said one main measure of success will be how many people are able to find full-time employment and stop using TANF by the end of the pilot

So the selectees will be participating in multiple programs - WorkReady Initiative, Community Empowerment and Opportunity, and JEVS Human Services, who will help them navigate those issues of applying for jobs, how to obtain training for better ones, etc. IMHO, those are the types of services that needed to have happened in the high schools to provide some sort of foundation after graduation.

In addition, one of things they found out last February when the stimulus checks were being sent out, there were whole swaths of the neediest who were literally off the grid and unable to get any of it -

Can Free Cash Solve Philly’s Poverty Problem?

BY Roxanne Patel Shepelavy

Feb. 04, 2021


Last spring, after Congress passed the historic CARES Act, millions of Americans breathed a sigh of relief: With a $1,200 check from the federal government, they could (for now, at least) pay for rent, and medicine, and food to sustain them during the Covid-19 quarantine.

But for thousands of Philadelphians left out of the program—like undocumented immigrants or those who file taxes with them—there was no relief. As that realization set in, Maari Porter, Mayor Kenney’s deputy chief of staff for policy and strategic initiatives, worked to find an answer to the nagging question: What could we do for these vulnerable populations?

The answer was the City’s first experiment in unrestricted cash assistance, the $1.7 million Worker Relief Fund, which gave $800 last summer to 2,162 Philadelphians left out of federal and state pandemic relief programs, most of whom were women of color in low-income households, many with low-wage essential jobs like domestic workers, home health aides and food delivery people. The money came from donations from The Mayors Fund for Philadelphia, Open Society Foundations and William Penn Foundation, among others.

According to data from the distributed debit cards and follow up surveys with recipients, most of the money was spent for survival—groceries, rent, household items—the kinds of things that even in normal times can be a struggle for poor Philadelphians. (More than half the funds were taken in cash—untraceable, but anecdotally a reflection of cash-only businesses in the community, and of rent payments that can’t be put on cards.) Admittedly, $800 was not enough to last throughout the pandemic, or to lift families out of poverty. But it was, for many, a stop gap that kept them going until they could figure out next steps.

(snip)

https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/can-free-cash-solve-philly-poverty-problem/

And as you probably know, when you have an idiotic state like this one, whose minimum wage is STILL $7.25/hr and the jackass GOP legislature refuses to raise it, then it continues to literally strangle people who are working in those lowest-paying service jobs - and these are actually jobs that are needed (housekeeping, home healthcare, childcare, etc), but the income from them are slave wages.