STATEMENT BY SUPERVISOR BARGER REGARDING VOTE TO OPPOSE GUARANTEED INCOME

LOS ANGELES COUNTY —Supervisor Kathryn Barger issued the following statement regarding her vote today to oppose two competing Board motions to institute guaranteed income for an unspecified number of residents without any restrictions or fraud prevention measures in place.

“I am deeply concerned about the motions approved by the Board of Supervisors today to guarantee a basic income for an unspecified group of individuals over a period of at least three years. Implementation of ‘Guaranteed Basic Income’ has yet to be fully researched and vetted in a jurisdiction comparable to ours. As the largest County in the nation, we should be more diligent, thoughtful and strategic before we implement a program of this nature. Instead, both initiatives before the Board were vague in how participants will be chosen and what metrics will define success. These measures also lack fraud prevention efforts, which is especially disconcerting considering the pervasive fraud that recently occurred at the California Employment Development Department.

“Allocating our valuable resources should be done to improve the long-term health of our region and to support those for whom we are most responsible – our foster youth who are aging of the system. These motions do not include any programs to expand future self-sufficiency through workforce training or educational attainment and they do not target our foster youth population as the only eligible recipients for these measures. Our focus should be to provide care and resources that will help our entire foster youth population succeed before we expand social services to include a universal income.”