COMPTON (2UG) – The Compton Pledge is coming to an end after a successful two-year pilot program in the city of Compton that served 800 participants.
The Compton Pledge is part of the Fund for Guaranteed Income that is the brainchild of Nika Soon-Shiong, the daughter of the owner of the Los Angeles Times. The news was shared on their social media accounts.
The final payments of the groundbreaking Compton Pledge pilot program, has been sent out. This program has paved the way for GI initiatives across the nation, supporting 800 low-income Compton families with over $9.2 million dollars of privately funded resources.
Innovative measures were implemented during the Compton Pledge to support a new safety net for historically marginalized groups. The program introduced a custom web-based payments platform, offering participants the freedom to choose their preferred payment method.
The payments platform not only enhanced economic security but also provided access to a range of community resources. Participants could connect directly with a live-chat feature, connecting them to a dedicated customer service team, including in-language support (in Spanish).
Former Compton Mayor Aja Brown is credited with spearheading the Compton Pledge who said it “symbolizes a powerful promise and elevates the possibility of a more inclusive, equitable, and prosperous future for all.”
In an interview, Brown said she had been aware of the concept of universal guaranteed income for years but got to see it in action in February 2019 when Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs launched the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration, which gave 125 residents $500 a month for 18 months.
In June 2020, Brown joined Tubbs as a founding member of the Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, a consortium of mayors working to launch more pilot programs in their cities.
According to a local interview, the funds were distributed by the Compton Community Development Corporation which lists Brown’s husband, Van Brown, as a member of the organization’s leadership.
According to its website, The Compton Pledge is a landmark guaranteed income initiative that will distribute recurring cash relief to low-income residents for 2 years, marking the largest city-based guaranteed income pilot in the U.S. The idea of guaranteed income (GI) is simple but powerful: unconditional, direct, and continuous cash payments delivered to all residents to supplement existing welfare benefits. By ensuring that no individual falls below a defined income floor over time, GI creates a true safety net. It enables families to weather crises and government actors and philanthropists to invest directly in the path toward economic justice and reparations.
Many of Compton’s residents, of whom 30% are Black and 68% are Latino, are either unemployed, poorly paid, or ineligible for government assistance. Upwards of 1 in 5 Comptonians live in poverty–double the nationwide average. Local housing assistance in Compton is at capacity, presenting unaffordable hardships for a city where 46% of residents are renters. In Compton, rates of unemployment have risen to 21.9% since the beginning of COVID-19, and a growing number of residents regularly rely on food pantries.
So far, there has been no announcement on whether the program will be extended.
The city of Long Beach started its own guaranteed income program, the Long Beach Pledge, and began making monthly $500 payments to 250 low-income households under its guaranteed income pilot program last month.
The program was funded in part by federal money received under the America Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and will run for 12 months.
