A new program launched Wednesday promising 32 single moms living below the poverty line $500 a month for a year, no strings attached.
It's the first experiment with a universal basic income in Franklin County. The program is funded by national organization UpTogether and local nonprofit RISE Together. The moms were selected though a program called Ohio Mothers Trust.
The program launched on the same day as RISE Together's release of their 2024 report "Poverty & Economic Insecurity in Franklin County."
The report found 39% of households in Franklin County are struggling to afford basic needs like food, housing and childcare. The report also stated that seven out of the top 10 jobs in the county don't pay enough to cover the rent on an average two-bedroom apartment.
"These jobs, including fast food, retail, home health aides and cashiers, employ roughly 180,000 residents. Too many of the jobs in Central Ohio don’t pay wages that provide a foundation of stability and security for a family," the report states.
Sydnor said the economic toll of poverty impacts the whole community.
"Poverty is actually really expensive. It was estimated to cost us $5.7 billion in 2023 in the form of lost earnings, health care expenses, and then the increased need of social services," said RISE Together CEO Danielle Sydnor.
The report found the cost of rent for a two-bedroom home in the county rose 47 percent since 2017, while median home prices went up 54%. But, wages haven't kept pace.
"We really have to grapple with the fact that employers have to have a conversation around what it means for individuals in our communities to have jobs where their wages don't pay enough for them to take care of their basic needs," Sydnor said.
Higher wages, more housing stock and more affordable childcare would help reduce poverty in the county, according to the report.
Sydnor said the program helping single moms is a more innovative approach that's shown promise in other places. She said the money, which comes without conditions, fills a gap in services.
"Our current safety net programs are very specific. So if I'm a family that's in need, there are resources available for subsidized housing. There are resources available for Medicaid, for medical assistance, for child care. But if for some reason, I have a need that falls outside of one of those prescribed safety net programs, there's usually not a funding source to be able to support that need," Sydnor said.
The program will cost $210,000. Sydnor hopes the program will recreate the success similar programs have had in other places.
"If we just simply provide, especially moms, with unrestricted cash assistance, they will do the things that we believe most families do, which is take care of basic needs from communities across the country," Sydnor said.
Sydnor said the program hopes to reduce stress, provide stability, reduce hunger and give the moms a chance to secure transportation or get a better job, like similar programs have shown.
"We saw moms do things like pay their rent, be able to get medicine that they had been putting off, maybe take care of a car repair purchase, things like washing machines that broke down and be able to just make sure their family had less stress and could consistently know that they had resources coming in if something was to go awry," she said.
Sydnor notes that the money isn't charity, but an investment because poverty costs society so much financially.
"There's this misperception even when we start talking about guaranteed income, one of the reasons that we say it's an investment into women, into families, is because it is an investment. It's not just a free handout," Sydnor said.
Sydnor also said society spends money on poverty anyway, so investing money to bring people out of poverty should lead to better conditions for individual families and society as a whole.
"Rather than continuing to see this staggering cost in our system, we would actually see people being able to participate more in our economy, generate more revenue that would go back into taking care of their households, buying goods and services and start to tip the scales a bit the other way," she said.
Ohio State University is partnering with the program to study how the $500 a month effects the families that receive the money.
