Yolo County program gave cash payments to families. Here’s what worked — and what didn’t
Yolo County lifted the household income just $1 above the poverty line for dozens of its poorest families for two years, dramatically improving their housing stability and reducing their stress around paying bills. Then, a cliff loomed when the program ended in April.
At the start of this Yolo Basic Income (YoBI) experiment, for instance, 60% of selected families owned or rented a home, but by the time the program ended 90% did, according to researchers from the University of California, Davis.
Even so, at the time families exited YoBI in April 2024, they told the researchers they were either already struggling to pay bills or were forced to cover expenses with the savings they had put aside during the program.
“This speaks to how powerful a two-year guaranteed income program is but that it’s likely not enough to really truly break that cycle of poverty that families are in,” said Catherine Brinkley, the UC Davis professor who led the evaluation of YoBI. “It provides a reprieve, but perhaps more is needed.”
Brinkley joined Yolo County Health and Human Services Director Nolan Sullivan on Monday to report highlights of the YoBI study findings to the Yolo County Board of Supervisors and field questions.
The county provided funding and manpower to run the program, joining in a public-private effort that cost more than $2.9 million to make happen.
Their goal was to discover the impact of lifting some of the county’s neediest families out of poverty. They examined survey responses and talked with participants to determine how it would affect housing stability and health and well-being. Only families with children under age 6 were eligible for the program.
“Financial strain creates economic pressure on caregivers, which negatively affects their mental health and care-giving practices,” Brinkley’s team explained in their report. “Material hardship fosters a scarcity mindset in caregivers, which adversely affects their physical and mental health, diminishing the ability to plan and set future goals for themselves and their children.”
In the long term, children who grow up in poverty often remain poor as adults, they said, and when they become parents, their children also have a difficult time achieving financial stability.
Guaranteed income or basic income programs are increasingly being studied or implemented as a way to provide people in poverty with what UCD researchers described as the “mental space or bandwidth” to take steps to improve their earnings potential or to focus on ensuring their children can succeed academically.
In her report to the supervisors, Brinkley shared a quote from one participant who told her team: “This program has really helped me focus more on my son’s mental health, his learning, because at first he wasn’t talking. He was walking. He’s in school now, and I’m really grateful for that.”
At a recent YoBI celebration, Brinkley added, “We had participants show up and note that they were able to get critical diagnoses for autism for their children, get them into special programs that would make a difference in their schooling.”
Although YoBI has ended, Sullivan said, his team continues to work with needy families in Yolo County to ensure they have the housing and food benefits available to them. This assistance, he said, is crucial in California where housing costs are high and rental markets are tight.
In Yolo County, UCD researchers reported, 77% of extremely low-income households pay more than half of their income on housing, and nearly half of county residents live paycheck to paycheck.
The YoBI program benefited 243 people, 96 adults and 147 children, Brinkley said, and about 90% of the families were headed by single mothers. Nearly 30% of the families identified as white, 34% as Hispanic and 19% as African American, UCD researchers said.
While 49 families received both the YoBI stipends and housing support, the researchers said, 27 families received only the YoBI stipends.
Participants said they were able to use the unrestricted cash to pay for utility bills, care insurance and maintenance, food, diapers, clothing and other basic needs. It also helped them to attend to the mental and emotional needs of their children, just being able to go out bowling as a family or to enjoy some other time together.
The researchers said that YoBI parents didn’t report improvements in their childrens’ behavior but that other research has shown that improvements in housing stability and caregiver stress levels can contribute to long-term improvements in children’s mental health and wellness.
Sullivan said he is looking at whether Yolo County might be able to participate in other research that would observe the longer-term impact that a basic income program can have on children and their caregivers. He and Brinkley said they hope to share their findings with state leaders and other counties not only to encourage others to give cash transfer programs a try but also to share lessons that they feel would improve other experiments.
The loss of YoBI affected the majority of participants negatively, as evidenced by several quotes from participants in Brinkley’s presentation. One of them said: “We’re back to square one again without YoBI. We’re back to bills up high again.”
However, a small number of participants saw profound changes for the better in their situations.
A couple were able to finish undergraduate degrees, and one individual completed a dissertation needed for graduate studies, said Ahna Ballonoff Suleiman, the executive director of the UCD Center for Regional Change. People reported finding sustained employment, she said, and one individual landed a promotion.
The program was also funded by the Kelly Foundation, Stuart Foundation, Travis Credit Union, First 5 Yolo, University of California-Davis Public Scholarship and Engagement, Sutter Health, Sierra Health Foundation, the federal American Rescue Plan and the Families First Prevention Services Act.
This story was originally published February 26, 2025 at 4:19 PM.
