KINGSTON, N.Y. — For 16 months beginning in May 2021, 100 eligible households in Ulster County received a universal basic monthly income as part of a pilot program to determine whether there is a better way to get relief to individuals in need.
The pilot program, funded through $800,000 in grants from The Community Foundations of the Hudson Valley, ended in September. In March, the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Guaranteed Income Research will survey the participants to determine the impact the additional income had on their lives and whether they are better off today than they were before they received the additional income.
Ulster County Deputy Executive Johanna Contreras said the university will issue a report on its findings over the summer.
“We’re just in the waiting period until the report comes,” she said during an interview Friday.
When former County Executive Pat Ryan announced the program in February 2021, thousands of county residents applied to take part. The 100 participants who met the criteria — participants had to be county residents with an annual income of no more than $49,600 — were chosen at random by University of Pennslyvania researchers.
The initiative is a partnership among the county’s Project Resilience, the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Guaranteed Income Research, and Community Foundations of the Hudson Valley. The NoVo foundation is a founder of both Project Resilience and the UBI program, the foundation’s Peter Buffett has said.
Although the program was initially intended to last for one year, it was extended for an additional six months due to the impact of the program on recipient’s lives, and ongoing economic pressures, Ryan said at the time. However, the amount each household received decreased as the program wound down, with participants receiving $400 in July, $350 in August and $250 in September.
Midway through the program, the county gathered anecdotal information about the impact of the funding on participants, finding that several used the additional funding for medical bills, including one participant who needed an MRI and would have been unable to afford the copay without the additional income, and a senior citizen who was able to get much-needed dental work thanks to the grant. Others used the income to help pay for child care in order to get caught up on bills and to help their elderly parents.
