City Of Sacramento Considering Plan To Provide Local Artists With Guaranteed Income

It was a pleasure to get a call out of the blue from reporter James Taylor from CBS 13 in Sacramento. He found my name because I’ve been on their show talking about arts and art making. He was looking to talk to some local artists about the Guaranteed Basic Income for Artists (GBI) program that the City is considering. You can learn more about that program here: https://cityofsacramento.research.net/r/JJ6MF8Z

Although I’m all for the plan, I didn’t feel like I was the best representative for this piece so I send a quick email out to some lovely artist folks I’ve had the joy of working with recently and I was overjoyed to see the following thoughts from Taylor Pannell.

Excerpts from THE report

“It’s been a strain,” said artist Taylor Pannell.

“There are many, many days where I don’t know if I’m going to eat,” she said.

The pandemic left her dream of being a full-time working artist in jeopardy.

“I was like, ‘am I really going to have to go back to a nine to five?’ And that was hard,” she said.

“It’s essentially an unconditional cash payment,” said Sacramento Cultural and Creative Economy Manager Megan Van Voorhis.

City leaders are considering setting aside a portion of the $10 million in Federal American Rescue Plan (ARP) funding, which was approved as part of the mayor’s ARP spending framework, to fund the program. If approved, it would provide a monthly income to help compensate artists for financial losses due to the COVID crisis.

“There are definitely a lot of people asking questions about whether or not they can stay in the industry at this point,” said Van Voorhis.

“Personally, I think that is an excellent idea. It would help me greatly and I have a lot of my friends greatly as well,” said Pannell.

Read More at https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2022/02/09/sacramento-artists-guaranteed-income/