Coronavirus: Thread

[grarpamp]

Infinite Forever Yield Fraud...

Crypto DeFi and Exchanges just collapsed
due to this bullshit, yet Govt's think it'll work
for them too, lol.

Steal and Debase your money for one thing,
use it to prop up something else, you got
fucked either way...



More Than 80 Cities, Counties Using Federal Pandemic Aid To Fund
Guaranteed Income Pilot Programs

https://www.theepochtimes.com/more-than-80-cities-counties-using-federal-pandemic-aid-to-fund-guaranteed-income-pilot-programs_4927888.html

There are at least 82 municipalities across 29 states now engaged in
guaranteed income experiments, including more than 70 with pilot
programs created within the past year, according to a coalition of
more than 100 American mayors promoting the concept.

Mayors for Guaranteed Income, and proponents among municipal officials
nationwide, are encouraging local governments to seed pilot programs
with federal pandemic assistance from a $350 billion fund for state
and local governments within the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan
Act (ARPA), adopted in March 2021.

The mayoral group was established by Michael Tubbs, the former mayor
of Stockton, Calif., in June 2020 after the city launched, and later
extended, an experiment where 125 residents received $500 monthly in a
program financed by the Economic Security Project, a nonprofit that
supports guaranteed income experiments.

During a Dec. 15 virtual roundtable discussion, several municipal
officials said there is growing public support for basic income models
and accelerating momentum to expand these programs through a mix of
federal, state, local, and private money.

In fact, much to the chagrin of conservatives and budget hawks, the
ARPA state and local recovery fund is being used “as a seed for
long-term policy change,” said DePaul University’s Dr. Amanda Kass,
who studies how states, cities, and counties spend federal pandemic
assistance.
Epoch Times Photo Roadways in Chicago, Ill., on Nov. 2, 2022.(John
Fredricks/The Epoch Times)

Kass told the panel that ARPA is the first federal program “that has
ever produced this amount of highly flexible aid to nearly all
governments in the United States—to tens of thousands of governments.”

As a result, she said, because of “the unprecedented nature” of the
2020 COVID-19 outbreak and its accompanying slate of federal
pandemic-related bills, local governments are spending ARPA money in
innovative ways which makes evaluating how they spent, or plan to
spend, that money “a tricky question.”

Kass said in analyzing how local governments are dispersing ARPA
allocations, there’s “not just one avenue” but “many different
stories” in how cities and counties “with unique socio-economic
conditions” are using the money to address “unique needs.”
Guaranteed Income Programs Gaining Traction

Baltimore Chief Recovery Officer Shamiah Kerney said her city is
sponsoring a guaranteed income pilot program in which 200 “18 to
24-year-olds who have children” receive $1,000 a month in supplemental
income for two years.

The city hopes to collect enough data to determine if providing a
guaranteed basic income for low-income families with children benefits
recipients and taxpayers, she said.

“We’re hoping that will inform the dialogue on a national basis,”
Kerney said during the roundtable, cohosted by the National League of
Cities and the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee (PRAC), a
watchdog panel created by the U.S. Office of Inspector General (OIG)
to monitor federal pandemic allocations.

Baltimore’s Young Families Success Fund earmarks $4.8 million in ARPA
money for the program. It began dispersing $1,000 a month to 200
recipients with incomes at or below 300 percent of the federal poverty
level—$26,200 for a family of four—in August.
Epoch Times Photo A person walks past a police car on July 28, 2019 in
Baltimore, Maryland. Baltimore has a stubborn crime problem and has
one of the highest murder rates in the nation for a city of any size.
(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

By fall 2024, Kerney said, the city suspects data collected from the
pilot program will “demonstrate the need” for sustaining, if not
expanding, the program.

In Cook County, Ill., which includes Chicago, the board of supervisors
in September approved the nation’s largest guaranteed income pilot
program, a $42 million plan mostly using ARPA money to provide $500
monthly to 3,250 households, at or below the federal poverty line, for
two years.

Cook County Budget Director Annette Guzman said officials are looking
at the program to determine if it should be “a permanent piece” in
addressing poverty “going forward.”

On Dec. 13, the St. Louis Board of Aldermen in a 21-1 vote set aside
$5 million in ARPA money for a test universal basic income program
that will provide 440 families with $500 a month for 18 months.

St. Louis Senior Strategic Initiatives Manager Grace Kyung said the
city had already dispersed more than $122 million in ARPA money for
direct cash assistance programs, mostly related to housing needs, so
the $5 million test program could prove to be a good investment.

The pilot program fits under the city’s “economic justice action
plan,” she said, which dovetails with U.S. Treasury ARPA guidelines
that “encourage” funding for programs that address “racial and
economic inequities” predating, but aggravated by, the pandemic.

Under U.S. Treasury guidelines attached to ARPA state and local
allocations “investments to support people or communities with low
incomes are allowable” even if initial ARPA outlays “may require
investments for an extended period to be successful.”

Using this framework, local governments have secured ARPA money for
programs related to community violence mitigation, behavioral health,
affordable housing, child care, eviction prevention, medical debt, and
cash assistance.
More Than $220 Billion Still Available

According to PRAC, a team of 21 OIG inspectors general who monitor
dispersement of $5.7 trillion in federal aid approved between March
2020 and March 2021—beginning with the $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid,
Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES) Act and concluding with
ARPA—there is still plenty of pandemic assistance money available to
municipalities.

As of Dec. 15, PRAC’s dashboard documents that $127.6 billion of
ARPA’s State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund had been “obligated” with
$93 billion spent.

More than 27,300 cities, counties, and special districts nationwide
have tapped into the ARPA fund thus far, PRAC reports.

The most common use of ARPA money identified by PRAC is “revenue
replacement,” which more than 24,000 local governments accessed to
compensate for revenue declines fostered by the pandemic necessary to
stabilize budgets.

But PRAC documents much of the $127.6 billion has been “obligated” to
a wide variety of programs related to public health, infrastructure,
administration, and “premium pay” with more than 6,800 allocations to
address “negative economic impacts” aggravated by the pandemic.

According to PRAC, as of Dec, 15, more than $477 million in state and
local ARPA money has been spent on cash assistance to 26 million
Americans through existing programs such as Temporary Assistance to
Needy Families (TANF), Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and
Community Development Service Block Grants (CDBG), as well as through
the growing number of pilot guaranteed income programs proposed by
Mayors for Guaranteed Income.

That leaves more than $220 billion in ARPA state and local fund money
that must be “obligated” by Dec. 31, 2024, and spent by Dec. 31, 2026.

Guaranteed income pilot programs will increasingly be part of that
mix, Cook County’s Guzman said, calling ARPA “an unprecedented
opportunity” for local governments “to go to a completely different
level” in addressing “historical inequities with transformative
programs that would help people recover from the pandemic.”