Lucio Vasquez/Houston Public Media
Harris County commissioners are weighing options to revive a guaranteed basic income program, months after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton scuttled the county’s attempt to pay monthly stipends to lower-income families.
The commission is scheduled to vote this week on the program, which would give participants a debit card and limits on spending categories. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said the revised program should preclude any potential legal challenges to the plan.
“This is obviously not the spirit of a guaranteed income program, but it will be helpful and will help us provide the funds that these nearly 2,000 low-income families had already expected and budgeted for,” Hidalgo said at a district court meeting last week.
Paxton asked the state to ban payments under the county’s guaranteed income pilot program. The Texas Supreme Court granted the state’s request in June and ultimately declared Uplift Harris unconstitutional.
County officials opposed Paxton’s ruling earlier this year, citing similar income programs in Austin and San Antonio that also went unchallenged by state authorities.
RELATED TOPICS: Texas Supreme Court halts Uplift Harris payments
“However, we know that the state will not mind suing us again under this program,” Hidalgo said last week. “We believe this should overturn any possible argument that it is not compliant with the law.”
The program was originally intended to be funded with $20.5 million from the American Rescue Plan Act. It was initially designed to provide $500 a month to 1,928 families randomly selected from among thousands of applicants living below 200 percent of the federal poverty level in certain zip codes.
The application portal for the program was closed in February after receiving more than 82,000 applicants. Only about two percent of low-income families who applied for the basic income program would actually have been selected to participate.
On August 6, commissioners weighed two options proposed by the ARPA Steering Committee to improve the program, with most favoring the debit card option.
After a brief discussion of the options, commissioners sent the item to the steering committee for a vote, county records show. The committee approved the debit card option on Aug. 7, and commissioners must hold their own vote this week, Houston Landing reported.
“This option will allow us to potentially get the funds to them as quickly as possible if the state allows it, if the courts allow it,” Hidalgo said. “Unfortunately, ‘as quickly as possible’ means a four-month period, which is what it takes to get Uplift Harris 2.0 up and running.”
The other option would have expanded the program to include all Harris County residents below the 200 percent poverty line.
Harris County Commissioner Tom Ramsey said he has no plans to support a revised basic income program.
“I will not support the motion and I think from what I can read about these types of programs, they really show that unconditional cash payments, while of course beneficial at the moment, have little positive benefit in the long term according to one or two studies. So I will not support the motion,” he said.
