We know what you’re thinking: what about benefits?

One of the big questions we are grappling with is how to deal with government benefits, when it comes to participants in the HudsonUP UBI pilot. If participants receive benefits - SSI, SSDI, SNAP (food stamps), Section 8 housing, etc. - will those benefits be impacted by participating in our program? If so, how?

Some people want to use the money from HudsonUP to leave government programs. But some don’t. What can we do to make sure that people are able to receive money from UBI programs like HudsonUP without being forced to lose government benefits if they don’t want to leave those programs? We are working on this question.

So far, we have been able to obtain waivers from local DSS so that participants who do use benefit programs will not lose their local benefits. We have also given people the option of having a family member accept the HudsonUP payments, so that the person in the benefit program does not lose their benefits.

This is something we’re still thinking about on a day-to-day basis, and we are working with local DSS and talking to organizers of other UBI pilots around the country to see how they are dealing with these issues. But it’s a complicated question that is playing out in real time.