County Announces Major Milestone in Guaranteed Income Program

LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles County’s landmark Breathe: LA County’s Guaranteed Income Program is underway, with 1,000 participants selected and now receiving $1,000 a month stipend, which will continue for the next three years. The participants range in age from 18 to 91 and live in communities throughout the County, speaking languages including Armenian, Cantonese, Farsi, Korean, Mandarin, Spanish and English.

More than 180,000 LA County residents applied for the program and the 1,000 people chosen were randomly selected by the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Guaranteed Income, which is researching guaranteed income programs across the country and studying the Breathe program’s impact on LA County’s participants. The program administrator, Strength Based Community Change or SBCC, accepted all 1,000 recipients of the Breathe program.

All 1,000 participants will receive $1,000 a month via debit card for three years as part of Breathe: LA County’s Guaranteed Income Program. The program was launched to address poverty and income instability and is one of the largest and longest running programs of its kind.

SBCC connected with the 1,000 residents and heard first-hand about the expected life-changing impacts to participants and their families.

SBCC will keep in touch with the selected participants and assist them throughout the duration of the program to help them reach their personal and financial goals to improve the quality of life for their families and themselves.