Chicago Experiments With a Guaranteed Income

Educating Working Families: How President Romney and his wife helped build America’s Next-Generation Agenda for Work Families and Communities

“There are some Republicans looking at this and saying, ‘We need to invest in rebuilding families and rebuilding communities, because it’s dire in some places — and it’s our voters,’” he said.

The group has founded think tanks, published statements of principle and organized discussions with policymakers to push its cause. Mr. Cass’ ideas on policy had been shaped by his family. His wife has her own career, and they both work from home in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts.

Mr. Cass served as the domestic policy director for Mr. Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign; in 2020, he founded American Compass, a think tank that has tried to build conservative momentum for more generous government support to working families. Its priorities include child cash benefits and wage subsidies.

Ms. Bachiochi, the mother of seven children, 4 to 21, is a fellow at two think tanks, the Abigail Adams Institute and the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Her husband is a tech executive and, she said, much more of a baby person than she is. She said in an interview that she wasn’t able to read and write while her babies were sleeping.

Social Work and Basic Income Programs: Are Urban Leaders Fighting For Their Faith, Creed, or Gender Identity? The Case of Mayor Lightfoot

The spread of basic income programs shows the divide between urban voters who want more government in their lives and those who want less.

Robert Rector, who helped shape the welfare changes of the 1990s, said that the American public doesn’t think that we need more aid for people who choose not to work.

In states with a deep blue and red hue such as Columbia, S.C., and Shreveport, La., political leaders are moving in opposite directions. Mayor Lightfoot may be in the throes of a difficult campaign for re-election, but none of her eight rivals for the Democratic mayoral nomination ahead of the first round of voting on Feb. 28 have made an issue of her guaranteed income effort.

Ms. Lightfoot said that the people who were against expanding health care are the same people who are suffering in their communities. These people are attacking the core of our democracy by demonizing being different, being the other, and so forth, based on your faith, creed, and gender identity.

Adrian Talbott is an associate dean for civic engagement and social work at the Crown Family School of Social Work at the University of Chicago. He added that the expectation was, “with big bets on behalf of traditionally marginalized, vulnerable populations in light of the pandemic, government can meet this moment.”

250 percent of the federal poverty level, which is $36,450 a year for an individual, $75,000 for a family of four, is forgiven if you have an income of at least $75k in Chicago and Cook County.