Atlanta to Work with Urban League to Launch Citywide Guaranteed Income Program

Atlanta is partnering with the Urban League of Greater Atlanta (Atlanta, GA) nonprofit to launch the city’s first citywide guaranteed-income pilot program for low-income residents.

According to the mayor’s office, the Income Mobility Program for Atlanta Community Transformation, or I.M.P.A.C.T., will serve 300 residents who are at least 18 years old and live below 200% of the federal poverty line, about $53,000 for a family of four.

Participants in the program will receive $500 per month during the 12-month pilot period.

The program is designed to address Atlanta’s struggle with income inequality. It was inspired by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who said more than 50 years ago that “the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income.”

Atlanta is donating $2 million to the Urban League to launch the program. The city obtained those funds from the developers of Centennial Yards, which will replace the Gulch downtown.

National partner Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, an organization Bottoms helped start last year with the former mayor of Stockton, Calif., will also donate $500,000 to the Urban League to fund day-to-day operations of the program.

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