“I Can Go to the Grocery Store and Don’t Have to Stress About It”

The Alexandria Recurring Income for Success and Equity (ARISE) program began in January 2023 with the random selection of 170 City of Alexandria residents from a pool of over 4,100 applicants. This guaranteed-income pilot study provides a $500 monthly payment to the selected participants for 24 months with “no strings attached,” leaving to them how to spend the added financial support.

The City is using this program as a learning opportunity, both about the outcomes for the participants in this project and as part of a larger nationwide effort to produce evidence on the effectiveness of providing direct funds to people who experience economic challenges.

On Wednesday, September 20, the Department of Community & Human Services (DCHS), in partnership with community foundation ACT for Alexandria, hosted the ARISE Basic Income Day of Action Event to celebrate the pilot study’s six-month milestone.

Julie Mullen, Economic Mobility Program Officer for DCHS, shared her insights at the event, saying, “Anecdotally, based on conversations we're having with participants, they are experiencing a boost in the quality of life, a sense of dignity, increase in their mental health and well-being. Just this sense of, ‘I can go to the grocery store, and I don’t have to stress about it. I can pay my rent and I don’t lose sleep over it.’ A lot of lifting of mental weight.”

ARISE Pilot Overview

• A $500 monthly cash payment is given directly to 170 individuals for 24 months.
• Eligibility criteria: Alexandria City residents, 18 years or older, with a household income at or below 50% or the area median income (AMI).
• As of 2023, the AMI in the City is $106,500 for a single-person household and $152,100 for a family of four, according to Housing Alexandria.
• The program is unconditional, which offers participants flexibility and autonomy.
• The additional income supplements existing social safety support programs and services, rather than replace them.
• Participants still have access to supportive services available to the community.

ARISE: Alexandria in a Microcosm

To comprehensively assess the impact of ARISE on its participants, the City is conducting a randomized controlled trial evaluation of the 170-person treatment group and a control group of 210 participants. Abt Associates, an experienced consulting and research firm, was selected to oversee the research after a competitive request for proposal.

Dr. Anna Jefferson and Dr. Randall Juras, principal investigators for Abt Associates, are leading the ARISE evaluation effort, incorporating both quantitative and qualitative analyses. They have adopted a community-based approach to the study and are training and mentoring two research fellows — paid City residents, who serve as local points of contact for program participants.

When asked what distinguishes Alexandria from other cities engaged in similar studies, Jefferson said, “Alexandria is such a diverse community. It’s also a very high-cost city to live in. The unique pressures of raising a family in a very high-cost area can’t be overstated. The amount you spend on rent is such a huge factor for families that makes it hard to make ends meet — even if you’re working two or three jobs. It’s harder to reduce poverty in a high-cost area. The money doesn’t go as far.” 

Mullen shared how an integral component of studying a program like ARISE is analyzing why poverty still exists, who it impacts, and what should be done. She shared a striking observation made during the onboarding of participants : the program represented a full cross-section of Alexandria residents.

“You could walk into a Harris Teeter and grab 10 people, and that’s who was showing up as our ARISE participants,” Mullen said. “It was elderly people, it was families, it was young people just trying to start out in their careers. One woman has an Ivy League degree and can’t quite get her financial footing in the world. It was a diverse microcosm of everyone in our community.”

Jefferson and Juras acknowledge that ARISE is part of a broader effort across the country. It marks Abt Associates’ eighth involvement in a guaranteed-income pilot study. They are also working in close collaboration with partners at the Center for Guaranteed Income Research at the University of Pennsylvania. The University is evaluating between 10 to 20 additional pilots that use nearly identical surveys and research methods so they can learn as much as they can from the broader portfolio of cities.

Demographics of the ARISE program:

• Average household size: 2.8 people
• Median household income: $20,400
• Average age: 43 years old
• Gender: 68% female, 32% male

What the Research is Measuring

Abt Associates is implementing the most rigorous kind of evaluation possible, a randomized controlled trial, for the best outcome. Through it, researchers will study how guaranteed income affects participants’ quality of life. This includes factors like financial well-being, psychological distress, physical functionality, child well-being, housing security and quality, and food security.

“We're also trying to learn more about their relationship between guaranteed income and participants’ — what we call the subjective sense of self,” Juras said. “So that's things like their sense of agency, their hope for the future, their ability to plan for the future, their ability to set and meet goals and take risks, and their relationships with community members.”

The summary of ARISE’s research process and timeline is below:

Jefferson explained that 12 single parents are the focus of ARISE’s ethnography, the in-depth interview and observation segment of the research, because they face particularly difficult circumstances. A single parent may have only one primary income in the household. Jefferson and Juras point to the City’s research fellows as a key part of building the groundwork for relationships and connections with these families. “For some people, that might mean that we go grocery shopping with them because they're able to buy more fresh fruits and vegetables for their kids,” Jefferson said. “Or we might go to the park or go to an extracurricular activity that they're now able to do so with their children.”

Psychological well-being is also a focus of the study because evidence shows that people's mental health responds quickly to lessened financial stress and improved food security. The deeper in poverty someone lives, and the longer they live in poverty, the worse their life outcomes are.

The full results from the ARISE study will not be known until the two years of the program are complete in January 2025. Even then, a survey will be conducted 6 months after the final payment to gain a full understanding of its impact. However, in the nearer term it will be possible to identify shifts in service delivery approaches as well as policy initiatives that could improve support for residents’ economic mobility.

While the researchers can’t divulge insights gained from the ARISE study until all data has been collected and analyzed, they can share observations from other studies that are farther along: “What we've seen from other cash transfer programs, like the expanded Child Tax Credit (during COVID-19 pandemic) when families with kids got payments for six months in 2021 — when those payments stopped, food insecurity and child poverty went up again immediately.”

Mullen says one of the lessons she’s learned during the first 6 months is leading with equity takes an investment of time and resources. She explains, “it took us 18 months from when the money was first allocated by City Council to when the first payment went out to participants, but it was worth the investment of time. During this period, we engaged the community—both potential participants as well as community providers—to inform both program design and the process to make sure outreach and access to the online application was equitable.”

Mullen concluded her presentation at the ARISE event saying, “the research is really just beginning. It’s a long journey to get that data, but we’re here for it and really excited about it.”