Shreveport Guaranteed Income Program Final Evaluation Report

This report shares the final results of the Shreveport Guaranteed Income Program (SGIP), a pilot supported by Mayors for Guaranteed Income, a coalition of over 160 mayors. The evaluation’s findings from Abt Global offer encouraging mixed-methods insights on the program, which provided a $660 monthly payment to single-parent families for a year. Former Mayor Adrian Perkins initiated the program, and the City of Shreveport and United Way of Northwest Louisiana administered it through the Shreveport Financial Empowerment Center. Private donations funded the initial six months of the SGIP, and the Caddo Parish Commission funded the remaining six months. Researchers randomly selected both recipients and people in the control group from qualified applicants, analyzed data. And interviewed participants. The SGIP was designed to help stabilize Shreveport single-parent households living in poverty.

Who Participated in the Shreveport Guaranteed Income Pilot?

From March 2022 to February 2023, Abt led a randomized control trial of SGIP. The pilot included 110 families. Most (88 percent) were single mothers with two children. Participants predominantly comprised renters (64 percent), and 70 percent reported being food insecure in the month before program application. Black participants accounted for 89 percent of participants, with an average household income of $12,435 per year.

Findings:

During the pilot, several short-term benefits were observed. Among them are:

• Improved financial stability during the SGIP – Fewer SGIP parents reported going into debt and said they were “managing” financially at mid-pilot. A quarter of participating parents also reported that they could cover a $400 emergency expense, compared with 13 percent of control group parents.
• Increased food security – SGIP parents reported a significant and large improvement in food security during the program. At the end of the pilot, 58 percent of participating parents reporting being food secure, compared to 36 percent of control group members.  
• Improved housing security and housing quality – Researchers did not detect any significant or marginally significant effects on housing status during the pilot or at the end of the pilot. But they noted a pattern of smaller changes that, taken together, may suggest that participants had greater housing security while receiving guaranteed income. About half of interviewed parents described using the GI to pay rent, utilities, or mortgage bills, while others reported that the no-strings attached cash assistance helped them to move to a new location that offered better schools and housing quality.
• Improved parenting – Interviewed parents reported that the GI payments had a major effect on their parenting, enabling them to spend more time with their children and to care for their physical, mental, and developmental needs. 
• Improved feelings of agency and hope – Survey findings showed a significant reduction of 7 percent at the end of the pilot on an index of household chaos for families receiving the guaranteed income. Survey data also showed hints of improvements on indicators of parents’ agency and hope. While researchers did not find statistically significant effects, most interviewed parents described having a “weight lifted” or having “a little of the pressure off my shoulders.” GI might have helped SGIP parents increase their sense of mattering during the pilot, primarily through helping them meet their children’s needs and supporting their social network.

These results are encouraging; notably that GI payments improved single parent led- families’ quality of life for the duration of the program. Participation did not appear to affect employment rates positively or negatively.  This indicates that further testing of guaranteed income in other locations with other populations and for different amounts and lengths of time may be beneficial.

Among the lessons learned: Participants reported that the easy application and onboarding processes reduced the stigma of financial assistance, but some parents felt anxious about the end of the program because they would be worse off financially. Participants suggested several modifications to the program:

• Extending it to two years to enable participants to complete a degree or get another job
• Providing payments at the start of the month when bills are due
• Not counting the payments as income for determining eligibility for other benefits.

Other recommendations include offering optional support services and a more robust offboarding process. 

The Shreveport findings add to the emerging body of research about guaranteed income programs in cities like Stockton, CA, Saint Paul, MN, Cambridge, MA, Paterson, NJ, Richmond, VA, Baltimore, MD, and Los Angeles, CA.  

Related Work:

• Evaluating Guaranteed Income Programs

Appendices