Tacoma using cash payments to families to battle toxic stress
June 7, 2024
CATEGORY: GOVERNMENT PROJECTS
Victoria Woodards, Mayor of Tacoma, WA
Source: Newsweek
Read time: 1.5 minutes
This Happened
In Tacoma, Washington, 175 residents will be given $500 per month for twelve months to spend any way they want to help combat toxic stress. The program, called GRIT 2.0, started cash disbursements in April 2024.
Who Is Doing This?
The program is the brainchild of Victoria Woodards, the mayor of Tacoma since 2018. She sees her role as mayor is to embed equity into every policy to transform the city into being anti-racist. She makes decisions based on the Tacoma Equity Index, which rates neighborhoods on 32 indicators. For example, instead of fixing street lights based on who called to complain, she fixes street lights in neighborhoods where more equity is needed. Her administration has an Office of Equity and Human Rights that she helped establish, a Chief Equity Officer, and each city department must have a Racial Equity Action Plan [1]. Woodards was one of eleven mayors who founded Mayors For A Guaranteed Income in 2020 [2].
Despite her efforts, the city has struggled with a doubling of violent crime [3] and attracts large numbers of homeless people.
The Premise
Cash payments come from the Growing Resilience in Tacoma (GRIT) program. It was created in 2020 by Mayor Woodards as a way to demonstrate that cash to low-income families can reduce “toxic stress, improve economic stability, increase housing security, and improve health and well-being” [4].
In 2021-2022, GRIT 1.0 gave $500 per month to 110 participants for 13 months for a total of $715,000. Funding came mostly from a grant from Mayors for a Guaranteed Income [5].
GRIT 2.0 is a slight expansion of the program to 175 families.
Analysis
Prior to launching GRIT 2.0, there was no outcome evaluation of GRIT 1.0 to determine if any of the outcomes related to toxic stress were achieved such as improved economic stability, housing security, mental health, or reduced poverty.
Supporters of cash assistance programs claim that support for a guaranteed income is as old as the United States [6]. Supporters fail to mention that much of that support has been suggestions to reform an unfair and wasteful welfare program, and often included incentives to work, as opposed to GRIT, which is an unconditional cash transfer.
Cash transfers have been criticized as creating resentment, disincentivizing people to work, and morally wrong. National support has failed to materialize for these programs due in part to long-standing criticisms that they take money from people who work hard and give it to those who refuse to work or who purposefully have children out of wedlock. A 2017 review of 34 programs optimistically concluded that the effectiveness of cash transfers “remains very uncertain,” while failing to find any robust effects [Pega 2022].
Trauma Dispatch has documented the lack of evidence for the toxic stress narrative here.
Why Is This Happening?
Dozens of small programs across the United States have been created for giving no-strings-attached funds to low-income individuals. All of these happened in areas run by progressive leftist politicians whose ideology is consistent with Marxist theory that problems of individuals are created by oppressors in society, and Communist- and socialist-style government solutions are needed to redistribute wealth. The Mayors for a Guaranteed Income coalition plans to use these programs to advocate for a federally-supported guaranteed income [8]
This is an example of how the false narrative of toxic stress is leveraged by radical leftists. Victoria Woodards appears to have visions of utopian societies and justifies her policy decisions by claiming they are based on the science of toxic stress.
REFERENCES
[1] Podcast. The Data-Smart City Pod 5/15/2023. Ep57 From Intent to Impact: Mayor Victoria Woodards on Equity. Bloomberg Center for Cities, Harvard University. https://datasmart.hks.harvard.edu/intent-impact-mayor-victoria-woodards-equity
[2] Mayors for a Guaranteed Income (June 29, 2020). Press release: Mayors across the U.S. launch gauranteed income initiative. Accessed 6/4/24, https://economicsecurityproject.org/news/mayors-across-the-u-s-launch-guaranteed-income-initiative/
[3] KIRO 7 news. October 5, 2022. Violent crime nearly doubled in the past year.
https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/tacoma-mayor-discusses-priorities-city-faces-rising-crime/BTQUAIW5WNEZLE4MSJVZP2KIQI/
[4] United Way of Pierce County. Growing Resilience in Tacoma (GRIT)—a guaranteed income demonstration. Accessed 6/4/24. https://www.uwpc.org/growing-resilience-tacoma-grit-guaranteed-income-demonstration
[5] KUOW/ NPR network (8/12/21), Mayor Woodard on how Tacoma’s guaranteed income pilot gives new meaning to ‘grit.’ https://www.kuow.org/stories/tacoma-joins-nationwide-guaranteed-income-pilot-project-ef0d
[6] Mayors for a Guaranteed Income home page, accessed 6/4/24. https://www.mayorsforagi.org/
[7] Pega, Frank; Pabayo, Roman; Benny, Claire; Lee, Eun-Young; Lhachimi, Stefan; Liu, Sze (2022). “Unconditional cash transfers for reducing poverty and vulnerabilities: Effect on use of health services and health outcomes in low- and middle-income countries, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2022 (3): CD011135. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD011135.pub3.
[8] Strozewski, Zoe {7/3/2021), More U.S. mayors interested in gauranteed income programs after early successes, Newsweek. https://www.newsweek.com/more-us-mayors-interested-guaranteed-income-programs-after-early-successes-1612568
You can subscribe to our email newsletter by clicking on Trauma Dispatch in the menu bar at the top of this page.
Read time: 1.5 minutes
This Happened
In Tacoma, Washington, 175 residents will be given $500 per month for twelve months to spend any way they want to help combat toxic stress. The program, called GRIT 2.0, started cash disbursements in April 2024.
Who Is Doing This?
The program is the brainchild of Victoria Woodards, the mayor of Tacoma since 2018. She sees her role as mayor is to embed equity into every policy to transform the city into being anti-racist. She makes decisions based on the Tacoma Equity Index, which rates neighborhoods on 32 indicators. For example, instead of fixing street lights based on who called to complain, she fixes street lights in neighborhoods where more equity is needed. Her administration has an Office of Equity and Human Rights that she helped establish, a Chief Equity Officer, and each city department must have a Racial Equity Action Plan [1]. Woodards was one of eleven mayors who founded Mayors For A Guaranteed Income in 2020 [2].
Despite her efforts, the city has struggled with a doubling of violent crime [3] and attracts large numbers of homeless people.
The Premise
Cash payments come from the Growing Resilience in Tacoma (GRIT) program. It was created in 2020 by Mayor Woodards as a way to demonstrate that cash to low-income families can reduce “toxic stress, improve economic stability, increase housing security, and improve health and well-being” [4].
In 2021-2022, GRIT 1.0 gave $500 per month to 110 participants for 13 months for a total of $715,000. Funding came mostly from a grant from Mayors for a Guaranteed Income [5].
GRIT 2.0 is a slight expansion of the program to 175 families.
Analysis
Prior to launching GRIT 2.0, there was no outcome evaluation of GRIT 1.0 to determine if any of the outcomes related to toxic stress were achieved such as improved economic stability, housing security, mental health, or reduced poverty.
Supporters of cash assistance programs claim that support for a guaranteed income is as old as the United States [6]. Supporters fail to mention that much of that support has been suggestions to reform an unfair and wasteful welfare program, and often included incentives to work, as opposed to GRIT, which is an unconditional cash transfer.
Cash transfers have been criticized as creating resentment, disincentivizing people to work, and morally wrong. National support has failed to materialize for these programs due in part to long-standing criticisms that they take money from people who work hard and give it to those who refuse to work or who purposefully have children out of wedlock. A 2017 review of 34 programs optimistically concluded that the effectiveness of cash transfers “remains very uncertain,” while failing to find any robust effects [Pega 2022].
Trauma Dispatch has documented the lack of evidence for the toxic stress narrative here.
Why Is This Happening?
Dozens of small programs across the United States have been created for giving no-strings-attached funds to low-income individuals. All of these happened in areas run by progressive leftist politicians whose ideology is consistent with Marxist theory that problems of individuals are created by oppressors in society, and Communist- and socialist-style government solutions are needed to redistribute wealth. The Mayors for a Guaranteed Income coalition plans to use these programs to advocate for a federally-supported guaranteed income [8]
This is an example of how the false narrative of toxic stress is leveraged by radical leftists. Victoria Woodards appears to have visions of utopian societies and justifies her policy decisions by claiming they are based on the science of toxic stress.
REFERENCES
[1] Podcast. The Data-Smart City Pod 5/15/2023. Ep57 From Intent to Impact: Mayor Victoria Woodards on Equity. Bloomberg Center for Cities, Harvard University. https://datasmart.hks.harvard.edu/intent-impact-mayor-victoria-woodards-equity
[2] Mayors for a Guaranteed Income (June 29, 2020). Press release: Mayors across the U.S. launch gauranteed income initiative. Accessed 6/4/24, https://economicsecurityproject.org/news/mayors-across-the-u-s-launch-guaranteed-income-initiative/
[3] KIRO 7 news. October 5, 2022. Violent crime nearly doubled in the past year.
https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/tacoma-mayor-discusses-priorities-city-faces-rising-crime/BTQUAIW5WNEZLE4MSJVZP2KIQI/
[4] United Way of Pierce County. Growing Resilience in Tacoma (GRIT)—a guaranteed income demonstration. Accessed 6/4/24. https://www.uwpc.org/growing-resilience-tacoma-grit-guaranteed-income-demonstration
[5] KUOW/ NPR network (8/12/21), Mayor Woodard on how Tacoma’s guaranteed income pilot gives new meaning to ‘grit.’ https://www.kuow.org/stories/tacoma-joins-nationwide-guaranteed-income-pilot-project-ef0d
[6] Mayors for a Guaranteed Income home page, accessed 6/4/24. https://www.mayorsforagi.org/
[7] Pega, Frank; Pabayo, Roman; Benny, Claire; Lee, Eun-Young; Lhachimi, Stefan; Liu, Sze (2022). “Unconditional cash transfers for reducing poverty and vulnerabilities: Effect on use of health services and health outcomes in low- and middle-income countries, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2022 (3): CD011135. doi:10.1002/14651858.CD011135.pub3.
[8] Strozewski, Zoe {7/3/2021), More U.S. mayors interested in gauranteed income programs after early successes, Newsweek. https://www.newsweek.com/more-us-mayors-interested-guaranteed-income-programs-after-early-successes-1612568
You can subscribe to our email newsletter by clicking on Trauma Dispatch in the menu bar at the top of this page.