Full Text of HR0620 102nd General Assembly
HR0620 102ND GENERAL ASSEMBLY |
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| 1 | | HOUSE RESOLUTION
| 2 | | WHEREAS, According to 2018 Census estimates, in Atlanta's | 3 | | Old Fourth Ward, the neighborhood where Martin Luther King Jr. | 4 | | grew up and later preached, 37 percent of Black children live | 5 | | in poverty while no white children do; and
| 6 | | WHEREAS, As the Old Fourth Ward has quickly gentrified | 7 | | over the last two decades, nearly half of the remaining Black | 8 | | households are living on less than $25,000 a year; and
| 9 | | WHEREAS, This trend of disproportional poverty among | 10 | | racial lines along with gentrification is happening across the | 11 | | country; and
| 12 | | WHEREAS, In Georgia, Black women make 63 cents for every | 13 | | dollar that white men make; and
| 14 | | WHEREAS, Later this year, the Old Fourth Ward will become | 15 | | home to one of the largest guaranteed income experiments in | 16 | | the U.S. and the largest to ever specifically focus on Black | 17 | | women; and
| 18 | | WHEREAS, The GRO Fund is partnering with GiveDirectly, a | 19 | | nonprofit that has been giving unconditional cash transfers to | 20 | | people living in poverty for a decade, to run the program, |
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| 1 | | which will later expand to predominantly Black suburban and | 2 | | rural areas in Georgia; and
| 3 | | WHEREAS, The In Her Hands program plans to enroll 650 | 4 | | Black women who will be randomly divided into two groups, one | 5 | | getting $850 a month for two years and the other receiving an | 6 | | upfront payment of $4,300, followed by recurring $700 monthly | 7 | | payments; and
| 8 | | WHEREAS, The new program will test whether it is more | 9 | | helpful to give a larger sum of cash initially rather than a | 10 | | monthly payment alone; and
| 11 | | WHEREAS, When the program expands to rural parts of | 12 | | Georgia, it will also help organizations understand the value | 13 | | of cash transfers in another setting, since most programs in | 14 | | the U.S. have happened in cities so far; and
| 15 | | WHEREAS, The lessons from the project could help inform | 16 | | better policy, support a redesigned social safety net, and | 17 | | help make the case for a federal guaranteed income program; | 18 | | and
| 19 | | WHEREAS, There is ample evidence that giving out cash, | 20 | | with no strings attached, can be transformative; and
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| 1 | | WHEREAS, In a village in Kenya, the first place that | 2 | | GiveDirectly worked, recipients have used the money to pay for | 3 | | food and healthcare, to start businesses, and to let their | 4 | | children attend school instead of working; and
| 5 | | WHEREAS, In Houston, the nonprofit distributed prepaid | 6 | | debit cards after Hurricane Harvey; this is arguably the most | 7 | | efficient way to make sure that people get what they actually | 8 | | need following a disaster, rather than the usual model of | 9 | | handing out donations of clothing or laptops that may or may | 10 | | not be useful; and
| 11 | | WHEREAS, In Stockton, California, one of a handful of | 12 | | cities that have tried a basic income experiment for | 13 | | low-income residents, recipients spent money on basic needs | 14 | | like food and utilities and, unsurprisingly, experienced more | 15 | | stability in their lives; more people were able to work or | 16 | | become involved in their communities; and
| 17 | | WHEREAS, Having a predictable flow of money not only helps | 18 | | people living near the poverty line with day-to-day needs but | 19 | | also provides stability when faced with surprise financial | 20 | | costs, such as medical bills; and | 21 | | WHEREAS, In Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s last book Where | 22 | | Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?, he wrote "The solution |
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| 1 | | to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed | 2 | | measure: the guaranteed income"; therefore, be it
| 3 | | RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ONE | 4 | | HUNDRED SECOND GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that | 5 | | we support the creation of a guaranteed income pilot program | 6 | | for women at or below the poverty line in the communities of | 7 | | East St. Louis and Cahokia Heights; and be it further
| 8 | | RESOLVED, That this guaranteed pilot program should be | 9 | | funded by the Department of Human Services through cannabis | 10 | | revenue; and be it further
| 11 | | RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be | 12 | | delivered to the Department of Human Services.
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