Imagine receiving an extra $500 a month with no strings attached to use however you want.  

This is what guaranteed income is–giving people the financial resources and autonomy they need for economic fulfillment.  

As someone who has always held multiple jobs in my adult life to make ends meet and to feel financially secure, I know how much of a difference extra money each month can make.   

Guaranteed income is not a new phenomenon. In fact, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a strong advocate for guaranteed income as a solution for poverty.   

In King’s 1967 speech “Where Do We Go from Here?” he expressed, “The dignity of the individual will flourish when the decisions concerning his life are in his own hands, when he has the assurance that his income is stable and certain, and when he knows that he has the means to seek self-improvement.”  

One of the myths about guaranteed income is that people who receive the money will spend it inadequately because they are poor. However, people are not in poverty because of poor decision-making. People are in poverty because of systemic inequalities such as racism, classism, sexism and other “isms” that make it difficult to have upward mobility.  

Advocates for guaranteed income such as former Mayor of Stockton Michael Tubbs, have continued King’s legacy by launching the nation’s first guaranteed income pilot, the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration in 2019.   

Since then, other cities, counties and states have launched successful guaranteed income pilot programs, one of which was Chicago, which launched two guaranteed income pilots in 2022. The Promise Guaranteed Pilot Program gave $500 unrestricted funds to 3,250 low-to-moderate income families in Cook County for two years and the Chicago Resilient Communities Pilot gave $500 unrestricted funds to 5,000 Chicagoans for one year. 

In addition, Equity and Transformation (EAT), a community-based organization in Chicago founded by and for formerly incarcerated people launched their own pilot program called the Chicago Future Fund in 2021 for system-impacted individuals. The Chicago Future Fund gave $500 a month in unrestricted funds to 130 post-incarcerated individuals for 18 months. 

In December 2024, Chicago and Cook County cut both the Promise Guaranteed Pilot and the Chicago Resilient Communities Pilot from the budget. As a result,  Community Change Action, EAT, and Workers Center for Racial Justice (WCRJ) co-founded the Illinois Future Fund campaign to advocate for a permanent guaranteed income program in Illinois.

In July 2025, I traveled from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Chicago and spent three days alongside EAT, Community Change Action, the Workers Center for Racial Justice, other community changemakers across the nation to knock on doors and build support for the Illinois Future Fund campaign. We had hundreds of conversations with residents and encouraged Chicago residents on the West and South sides to sign the pledge for a permanent guaranteed income program in Illinois.   

On day one of canvassing, Co-President of Community Change Dorian Warren announced our goal of knocking on thousands of doors in three days.  

I was shocked at the goal. I had canvassed before, but never like this.   

When I canvassed in Milwaukee, I was familiar with the communities and knocked on about 20 doors per canvass shift, but being in Chicago was new and we were covering bigger terrain.   

Thankfully, Community Change Action, WCRJ, and EAT staff gave us training and resources in preparation for canvassing.  

I was still nervous, but the training built my confidence and eagerness to canvass and build power.  

We were assigned canvass groups and neighborhood designations on the South and West sides of Chicago. Each group went to their respective turfs and knocked on doors to see who could get the most pledges signed at the end of each day.  

I was in a group of six that consisted of Community Change Action staff and EAT’s Organizing Director Maurice Woodward, who shared with residents why a permanent guaranteed income program in Illinois is important to him and where the money would come from. 

Maurice’s experience being a Black man impacted by the criminal legal system and seeing family members negatively impacted by the same system has driven his desire to give back to the community and advocate for systems-impacted people to have the financial resources to live economically stable lives.

Maurice described guaranteed income as funds that are for people most impacted, so that they can get their basic needs met. Essentially, it is “a model for reparations.” 

For those wondering where the money for a permanent guaranteed income program would come from, Maurice explained that one source of revenue could be from cannabis tax revenue.  

When the state of Illinois legalized recreational marijuana, it allocated tax revenue to go to underserved communities. 

In 2019, HB 1438 was signed into law, which legalized the use and possession of marijuana for adults in the state of Illinois. The bill allocated financial resources to communities called Restore Reinvest Renew (R3) Zones that were impacted by the War on Drugs.

The War on Drugs, a government-led campaign initiated by President Nixon in the 1970s, aimed to “stop illegal drug use, distribution and trade by dramatically increasing prison sentences for both drug dealers and users.” Critics argue that the campaign had racist undertones and disproportionately targeted communities of color, leading to increased arrests, prosecutions, and imprisonment of Black and brown people in Chicago and other cities across the nation.

However, the financial resources allocated from HB 1438 are not disbursed directly to the people impacted by the War on Drugs. It’s disbursed to organizations and businesses. EAT is advocating for guaranteed income to go directly to the people.

Maurice explains, “So what we’re saying and demanding in our campaign is instead of writing grants to nonprofits [to disburse the money], give that money directly to other people in that area, survivors of the War on Drugs.
If the cannabis tax revenue is to give back and be recreational, then put that money into the hands of people instead of just the organizations.”

Within three days, we knocked on more than 4,000 doors as a collective, had about 500 conversations, and received over 300 signed pledges to support a permanent guaranteed income program in Illinois. 

Even though we weren’t able to reach someone at every door we knocked on and not every person we talked to supported our campaign, we still had the opportunity to leave resources about guaranteed income at people’s doors and have critical conversations about economic stability and empowerment with Chicagoans.  

If you live in Illinois and care about guaranteed income, sign this pledge to support the Illinois Future Fund Campaign that will put us one step closer to a permanent guaranteed income program.  

If you want to go a step further to support economic empowerment in Illinois, consider signing EAT’s petition to support The Big Payback campaign advocating for reparations for people impacted by the War on Drugs.