Cook County leaders tout success of their guaranteed income pilot program

Cook County’s pilot program to provide guaranteed income to more than 3,000 people did what it was intended to do, early findings suggest — it helped provide some economic stability.

“We got to make the case that these are great investments in our residents and our citizens,” Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said.

For two years as part of an initiative called Cook County Promise, recipients who had low to moderate income received $500 a month, which they could spend on whatever they wanted. They mostly used the funds on food, rent, utilities and transportation, according to preliminary survey results. People said the infusion of money helped reduce stress and helped them feel more financially secure.

But after the last payments arrived in January, the county is forming an advisory committee to figure out what’s next for the program.

Cook County Promise is one of Preckwinkle’s signature initiatives, and it received national attention. She has vowed to make it permanent.

“I think it’s really important that we be part of the national conversation around guaranteed income,” Preckwinkle said in an interview. “We’re the richest country in the world … and we don’t take care of our own. And we got to do better.”

She points out the expanded child tax credit in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic helped reduce poverty.

Cook County Promise began in 2022 and was paid for with $42 million from the federal government to help recover from the pandemic. Governments across the U.S. used pandemic funding to pilot guaranteed income programs. Chicago had a program, too, but that has ended, much to the ire of advocates.

Sabrina Eve Panariella, a single mother of two boys, got into the county’s program through a lottery after she lost her job. Her rent had just gone up by $250 a month and she was in school to become a certified yoga teacher. She remembers the moment she was standing in her kitchen when she got a text alerting her she won a spot in Cook County Promise.

“I just kind of dropped down on my knees, and I was like, thank you God,” said Panariella, 45, who lives in west suburban River Grove. “I just really was so excited that the universe gave me this opportunity to get, you know, some help financially.”

She found a job just before getting into Cook County Promise. But Panariella said she was making half as much as she did at her previous job. Her savings were depleted and she used state assistance to help buy food and get medical care.

Panariella said she used her monthly payments from the county to pay for rent, bills and groceries, and feels more confident after going through the program. She said she works hard to fill the $500 monthly gap in her budget now that her payments have ended.

“I have this positive mentality that it’s going to work out,” Panariella said. “I just work my butt off until I can earn what I need to earn to take care of myself and my two kids and my two cats.”

That includes building her yoga business.

The county released survey results from GiveDirectly, which administered Cook County Promise and checked in with recipients a few times during the program. At one point roughly 94% of participants said they used the money to manage a financial emergency or unexpected expense, while 73% said they believed the payments would impact them after the program ended.

Separately, researchers at University of Chicago’s Inclusive Economy Lab are evaluating the program and plan to reveal their findings this year. Initial findings showed that when the program first started, participants most commonly prioritized paying bills, followed by paying off debt.

Some of that came to fruition, according to GiveDirectly’s survey results. Around 45% of people said they were able to avoid debt, while another 31% say they reduced their debt.

More than 300 participants in the program used financial counseling, and almost 60% who worked with the non-profit Working Credit for at least a year increased their credit score on average nearly 40 points, according to the county.

The advisory committee is set to meet later this spring. They will look at everything from the scale of a future guaranteed income program to who would be eligible depending on where they live. For example, that might include more participants who live in Chicago now that the city’s program has ended. About 15% of people in Cook County Promise lived in Chicago and the rest lived in the suburbs, said Dominic Tocci, deputy bureau chief in the county’s Bureau of Economic Development.

The committee also will determine how to pay for the program, which could be from a mix of general operating funds and philanthropy, Preckwinkle and Tocci said.

It’s not clear yet when the next iteration of the county’s guaranteed income initiative would start. More than 230,000 people applied for the pilot program, which county leaders say underscores the need for financial assistance.

Kristen Schorsch covers public health and Cook County for WBEZ.