A year has passed since a group of local residents first began receiving payments from a guaranteed income pilot program aimed at providing them with financial support during the crucial months before and after having a baby.
Since then, more than $1.4 million has been distributed to 150 recipients living across the county through what’s known as the Humboldt Income Program, a year-and-a-half-long poverty reduction effort administered by the McKinleyville Family Resource Center with funding from private donations and a state grant.
A pair of participants who volunteered to talk with the Journal describe the $920 they’ve been receiving each month as transformative — from opening doors to simply allowing them to spend more time with their child without worrying about how to make the rent.
Iris, who asked only her first name be used in the story, says things began falling into place for her and her longtime partner when she was selected for the program.
While the couple was thrilled about having a baby on the way, the news came just as they learned the place they had lived in for years was being sold, leaving them to face Humboldt County’s bleak rental market, with prices that seemed out of reach.
The HIP money, she says, gave them “some breathing room,” opening up more options in their search. In fact, Iris says, on the very day that first allotment landed in her account, she spotted the listing for the small but comfortable home where they now reside on a quiet side street in McKinleyville.
Without the added income, Iris says, they wouldn’t have been able to afford to move into their family-friendly neighborhood, describing the concurrence as “perfect timing.”
As her chubby-cheeked 9 month old smiles while being rocked in her arms despite going through a rough patch of teething, Iris says everything about the program has made a difference in their young family’s life, especially the gift of time.
After previous miscarriages, the arrival of their healthy, happy “rainbow baby” carried extra special meaning for the couple. The HIP money, Iris says, allowed her to take time off from the cleaning service she operates while her partner had paternity leave from his work, giving them the chance to bond together with their newborn in those first weeks — which are often magical but can be utterly exhausting. Babies also come with a lot of added expenses.
“It gave me more time to be present with my baby rather than thinking about: How am I going to make ends meet? How am I going to pay for diapers?” Iris says, adding the couple’s rent alone is about half of what she makes at her job each month — and nearly triple what they paid at their former place. “It’s given me a complete sigh of relief.”
Being in the program, Iris says, also gave her the comfort of knowing she was still able to bring in money for their growing household during her unpaid break, something she otherwise probably wouldn’t have taken, noting her partner is very supportive but the added income lifted a lot of weight off both their shoulders.
“I just wanted to contribute,” she says. “I would have had to go back to work full-time if I had not had the Humboldt Income Program.”
Robin Baker, executive director of the McKinleyville Family Resource Center, says relieving financial pressure is a big part of what the project hopes to accomplish, noting the “money from HIP is being delivered to families at a critical time.”
“The time leading up to and after birth can be incredibly stressful for families,” she says in an email to the Journal. “Removing a financial burden allows people to make the best decisions for themselves and their children, whether that is returning to work soon after baby is born, or having the option to stay home with baby longer.
“Removing stress during this time can have long-lasting impacts on the bonds built between parents and their children and on the long-term health and well-being of children raised in their homes,” Baker continues. “Some of these impacts we may never know, or we may not see until many years down the road.”
The McKinleyville Family Resource Center acts as a major hub for connecting Humboldt residents with services, ranging from a Food for People pantry to helping with applications for safety net programs in partnership with local tribes and other agencies.
In 2022, the nonprofit was one of seven in the state to receive a California Department of Social Services grant to participate in the pilot project and provide the monthly assistance as part of the state’s $25 million investment in exploring guaranteed income programs for residents going through major life transitions.
While some of the pilots focus on helping teens transition out of foster care, others center on pregnant women, like the HIP program, whose enrollees needed to meet certain requirements, including being at least 18, in their first or second trimester and having a gross income at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level, or $30,120 for a one-person household before taxes and other deductions.
Of those who qualified for the HIP, 150 were randomly selected to receive the $920 monthly payments while another 100 women were assigned to receive $20 a month to meet the state’s requirement that the program have a control group, with both groups asked to participate in a series of voluntary surveys.
“While this was not our preference, this is considered ‘the gold standard’ for evaluation of programs like these,” Baker says of the control group. “At the end of the program, the evaluation team will be able to deliver information on the impacts of the payments and how that is different from the experiences of those who did not receive them.”
And, she says, having hard data is an important tool in efforts to continue and expand these types of “trust-based” programs that allow the recipients to best decide how to use the assistance to meet their individual needs.
“While there is already extensive research from other pilots across the country, and while we believe wholeheartedly in guaranteed income, governments, philanthropists and others still need concrete evidence of the impact of programs like these,” Baker says. “We hope that our participation in this state-funded pilot and research is one step toward making guaranteed income available to more people.”
Each of the state-funded pilot programs, including HIP, is being evaluated by the Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C., think tank that focuses on economic and social policy research, Department of Social Services spokesperson Theresa Mier previously told the Journal.
“Outcomes that will be studied and evaluated include health and overall well-being, financial stress, employment and education,” she said. “The final report is currently slated to be completed in 2026.”
Sarah Benatar, a senior fellow with the Urban Institute, says the data being compiled on the state’s programs is still in “the very early stages,” with only one of the seven programs having any participants who completed the full funding cycle.
In HIP’s case, the initial group of enrollees will receive their last payment in four months, while others selected near the end of the enrollment period will continue with the program through the summer.
Asked to speak in general about impacts shown from previous guaranteed income programs, Benatar says it’s a difficult question to answer from a research standpoint.
“All of these programs are being stood up in many different ways, so there’s not necessarily consistency across the implementation, and the research methods have also been different,” she says, adding that it’s a “very young field, and it’s a little bit too early to draw big conclusions.”
But, Benatar notes, California’s guaranteed income pilots stand out for several reasons, including that the programs are being done as random controlled trials, “which means it will be more rigorous.”
In simple terms, random controlled trials are a scientific method for evaluating the effectiveness of an intervention — in this case a monthly guaranteed income — on a group of similarly situated people, with some randomly assigned to receive the funds while the “control” group does not and then comparing outcomes. The process, as Baker previously mentioned, is considered the “gold standard” in research.
Another unique aspect, Benatar says, is California was “able to get benefit waivers, so that people who are receiving the guaranteed income are not cut off from existing benefits, so it’s not like a supplantation of what would otherwise be provided to them.”
And, she says, in addition to asking participants to fill out a baseline survey at the beginning, along with two more while in the program and another at the conclusion, there will be a check-in later down the road.
“So we will be following folks at least six months after they stopped receiving the guaranteed income, which is not something that we often have the opportunity to look at,” Benatar says. “Just to see what effects might be sustained overtime.”
A February policy brief on guaranteed income initiatives specifically focused on assisting low-income pregnant women and new parents by the UCLA School of Law Center on Reproductive Health, Law, and Policy also notes the field is relatively new but states initial data “is promising, suggesting positive effects.”
“Emerging evidence indicates that cash payments that arrive during pregnancy and throughout childhood can positively impact pregnancy and infant health, including reduced incidence of low birthweight, less smoking during pregnancy and other increased positive infant health outcomes,” the policy brief says, noting that early results are “showing positive impacts on stress levels, mental health, healthcare access and utilization, housing security, food security, being able to afford outside childcare, being able to buy household essentials, paying down debt and beginning to save.”
An estimated 12 percent of California residents live in poverty, according to U.S. Census data, but Humboldt County’s numbers are bleaker, with an estimated 17 percent of households living below the federal poverty line — $32,000 in annual income for a household of four — while the county’s median household income comes in at $61,000 compared to $96,000 statewide.
“The decision to have a child is deeply personal and can impact a person’s education, earnings and overall economic security,” the policy brief says, citing a 2022 Brookings Institute report, which estimates families need to spend at least $17,000 a year for each child in their household, with one-third of that going toward food and childcare costs. “Being pregnant, giving birth and raising a family is also expensive and can include anything from the high costs of healthcare during pregnancy to formula and diapers to childcare.”
The brief also says that an “estimated 60 percent of women struggle financially in the peripartum period” and “women who have given birth in the past year are twice as likely to experience medical debt than those who have not.”
The state’s entry into the no-strings-attached assistance model is based on one started six years ago in Stockton by then Mayor Michael Tubbs, who is now a special advisor to Gov. Gavin Newsom on economic mobility and opportunity.
Known as the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration, or SEED, a 2021 white paper evaluating the program found the $500 a month that participants received for two years impacted their lives in large and small ways, from allowing them to afford a dependable car and navigate unexpected expenses to enroll in college and often just relieving some of the constant pressure they felt in trying to make ends meet.
Several Stockton parents interviewed said the payments translated into time they didn’t have before “to engage with their children in small, but normal rites of passage that generated dignity and quality of life,” according to the report, with one recipient describing how they were finally able to “breathe and do homework with them.”
Another talked about the simple act of being able to “say yes to the ice cream instead of no.”
“My kids have always heard no,” the parent said.
The report also found the largest spending category for participants was food, followed by utility bills, auto care and transportation, noting that “less than 1 percent of tracked purchases were for tobacco and alcohol.”
Because the state guaranteed income programs currently underway are “designed to support the autonomy of participants,” Baker says the family service center has limited contact with HIP enrollees about how they are doing, with their interactions mostly related to “support around the delivery of payments.”
“We have also offered optional benefits counseling, financial support classes and case management to participants,” she says. “Mostly, participants are focused on supporting their families and raising their children. We’ve had lots of requests for proof of income as people are looking to move into better housing.”
In order to receive the state grant, the McKinleyville center was required to raise $1.1 million in matching philanthropic funds, with the addition of private donations allowing recipients’ payments to be exempt from counting against other safety net services they might be receiving — as Benatar mentioned — including food assistance and healthcare through the state’s Medi-Cal program.
That aspect, Iris says, made a huge difference for her family, especially being able to keep her current healthcare. “You didn’t have to make a decision of: Do I take it, or not,” she says.
Iris says she always makes sure to participate in the voluntary surveys that will be used in the program’s evaluation, noting, “I feel it’s important to do so, so they can see how it’s benefiting people.”
The whole process, she adds, “has been super easy and everyone has been awesome.”
Another participant, who asked that her name not be used, echoed those words. While her pregnancy story has a different ending — due to “intense health issues” she was unable to carry to term — she says she can’t say enough good things about the program and what it has meant for her life.
At first, she says she wasn’t feeling right about staying in the program and reached out to Baker right away to let her know what happened, but was told the money was there to support her, which it sounded like she still needed. Baker, she says, “was just so, so sweet and open about that this is exactly what it’s here for.”
“I wanted to share my experience,” the woman says, “because I think what they’re doing is phenomenal.”
Baker told the Journal that the “decision to continue payments in the event of pregnancy loss was one that we made during the design phase of the program. … We understand the emotional, physical, and financial impacts that pregnancy and infant loss can have on individuals and families.”
“We knew that removing a financial support during that time would be an added loss for families and we did not want to do that,” she continues. “We hope that this financial support can be a springboard for whatever comes next for those families during a difficult time.”
That, the woman says, is exactly what happened for her. Had things worked out differently with her pregnancy, she says she has no doubt the money would have made a big difference for the two of them.
Despite the “unfortunate circumstances” she experienced, being in HIP, she says, not only carried her when she was unable to work due to her health issues but allowed her to financially untangle herself from “what was actually not a good, healthy relationship that I would not have wanted to have a child in anyway.”
“It gave me time to take care of myself and the grace to make better decisions for myself,” she says.
That includes returning to college to pursue her dream of attending medical school — something that is now becoming reality.
“It has been a phenomenal support, of just getting a better foot in front of me, and I am super grateful for the program,” she says. “It was so unexpected and I had no idea there was something like that going on in the county, and I will be eternally grateful for it putting me on a different trajectory in life.”
As the program begins to wind down, Baker says HIP participants are being notified each month of how many payments they have left and the nonprofit continues, as it always has, to offer financial counseling and other support.
“For some folks, this was just the right amount of support and the right amount of time to get them through a stressful period in their lives,” she says. “What happens when the income ends is similar to what happens to any of us when a source of income ends, folks will make a budget and a plan for what comes next for themselves and their children. That might be returning to work or it might be enrolling in programs like CalWORKs.”
For Iris’ part, she says there’s a part of her that wishes the extra income was not coming to an end but being in the program gave her “time to think about opportunities rather than stressing every day about money.”
To that end, Iris says she has been taking business classes online and making plans for what happens next, noting she has always worked hard to save every month.
But, Iris says, “It’s going to look a lot different when I don’t have the extra money,” while adding, “I’ll figure it out.”
Baker says there’s no current replacement for HIP on the horizon and much more needs to be done in the big picture to change the financial struggles that are a daily reality for many local families.
“While we are committed to advancing guaranteed income and other trust-based cash assistance programs, we also know that guaranteed income in isolation is not enough to solve all of the problems that parents face,” she says. “Alongside programs like these, we also need to be increasing access to safe and affordable housing, quality accessible medical care, affordable and widely available childcare, and other systems and structures that support the health and well-being of infants and their caregivers. Guaranteed income is just one piece of a much larger and complex puzzle.”
Kimberly Wear (she/her) is the Journal’s digital editor. Reach her at (707) 443-1400, extension 323, or kim@northcoastjournal.com.
This article appears in ‘Breathing Room’.
