By Gabriella Nunez, Aisha Howard
A Georgia program gave women $850, no strings attached. The results? More stability, opportunity, and a push for statewide policy change.
ATLANTA — No-strings-attached cash flow could be a bold solution to helping women in Atlanta find better economic footing, a new report shows.
It may feel like an idea that’s too good to be true, but that’s why the Georgia Resilience & Opportunity Fund put it to the test through its In Her Hands initiative. The name is an ode to Dr. Martin Luther King’s legacy and his work advocating for income equality.
“We’re really honored to have been able to bring this concept to life, especially at such an important time in our city, our country, and what’s happening in our economy and hopefully bringing to life an idea that can help all of us thrive,” Hope Wollensack, founding executive director of the GRO Fund said.
Here’s what the group learned.
A bold experiment
Since the summer of 2022, GRO Fund has provided $850 guaranteed income to 654 Georgia women. Participants were from College Park, Atlanta’s Old Fourth Ward and rural Georgia counties of Terrell, Randolph and Clay. Most participants were mothers, and the average income for this group was $14,000 at the time of enrollment.
“So they are facing pretty significant economic strain,” Wollensack said. “And although they’re resilient, resourceful, making it work with what they’ve got, we wanted to be able to provide a little bit of breathing room to those who are experiencing some of the greatest need.”
After its two-year-long experiment, the largest guaranteed income program in the South released its findings last month, revealing that beyond financial stability, a majority of women were able to improve their mental and physical health, food security and increase savings for their children’s education.
Most importantly, many women said they were able to build bigger goals and invest in themselves.
Brittany Harrod is proof of that.
“It helped me pay for cosmetology school to be able to get my license, to be able to provide more services, to provide more means for my family,” Harrod, a College Park participant, said.
Impact of no-strings-attached funds
Harrod first learned about In Her Hands from a friend. She applied, got a call about the program two days later, interviewed and was enrolled.
With the financial pressure easing, the mother of two began to focus on more than just making ends meet. As a mother of a college student at Kennesaw State University and a 9-year-old at home, she said life as a hairstylist has always been busy.
“I didn’t really have the means to set aside the time or the funds to be able to go to school at the same time,” she said. “It (helped) a lot.”
Using the funds to seek certifications in cosmetology, she said she was able to pursue entrepreneurship at a different level.
“I’m able to provide more services, which brings more funds into my home. It allowed me to be able to grow and elevate my business and make it more of a business rather than just something that I was able to do on the side,” Harrod said.
Though the guaranteed income can be traced to measurable success, she added that its impact can’t be quantified. One can’t put a price on pride, which is what she felt as she furthered her career.
“It shows (my daughter) that we can persevere through a lot,” she said. “We’re not limited to what we can do.”
‘The simplest approach’
Wollensack calls the funds a “considerable boost,” clarifying that the $850 was decided through community input and researching an amount that would make a big enough difference for participants trying to get on a better financial footing. The funds were funded by philanthropy and donations.
“Dr. King called guaranteed income the simplest approach,” Wollensack said. “Oftentimes, we solve for everything but poverty itself.”
Early critics of the program said it would be tough to implement this on a large scale. Others call such initiatives a “handout.”
Harrod said that’s misinformed thinking.
“It’s not a situation where it could help you be rich, but you could for sure grow from it,” she said.
What sets GRO Fund’s initiative apart is that it directly invests in people, giving participants the flexibility to use the funds in a way that works for them, and it’s paid off.
“It never felt like pressure,” Harrod said. “It’s life-changing in the long run.”
In Her Hands’ future
With the success of its first program, Wollensack said it is expanding to include a second cohort in Atlanta’s westside.
For this installment, 275 women will receive guaranteed income for three years.
Currently, 16 states have active guaranteed income programs, but Georgia isn’t one of them.
As local efforts grow, Wollensack hopes the impact can inspire broader policy change.
Wollensack believes state lawmakers have options to try and come to a solution.
“That could look like a wide variety of solutions from a state child tax credit which we’ve already seen introduced in this past legislative session to could we have a state-level EITC or an earned income tax credit that helps provide an additional base amount to low-income families within our state,” she said.
She added that she believes the GRO Fund’s initiative shows the positive impacts of much-needed cash and its help to families, and believes state lawmakers could learn from the study.
This post was originally published on Basic Income Today.