Increasing and Protecting Access to Public Benefits

The report below lays out some of the relationships between disability, public benefits, and cash. It offers ideas for future movement work that harnesses the critical insights of disability organizing.

The U.S. movement for guaranteed income (GI) is growing. One question continues to surface among advocates, organizers, and program administrators: How does cash interact with public benefit programs? This is especially important for disabled people who use means-tested cash assistance, like the federal Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, as their primary source of support. People who use public benefits are experts about cash, but they are often left out of the design, implementation, and research about guaranteed income programs.

We draw on lessons from the CRNY Guaranteed Income for Artists program (2022 – 2024) and a convening of advocates from across the U.S. (July 2024). In the end, this document offers the notion of a ‘crip coin’ as an essential currency for the future of the cash movement.

This report seeks to:

• Collate and advance existing work on this topic
• Contextualize the contemporary cash movement with public benefits as a key backdrop
• Explain the importance of protecting access to public benefits
• Advocate for the role of disability organizing to the cash movement
• Identify existing and emergent tools for protecting access to public benefit programs
• Recommend pathways for future cross-movement work in GI and disability organizing

This document is written for disabled organizers and advocates, cash movement organizers, administrators, and researchers.

Access the report (HTML)