Hello, and welcome to the Rural Guaranteed Minimum Income Initiative!
What
RGMII is an effort to provide a Guaranteed Minimum Income to folks in rural US counties — direct, regular, obligation-free cash payments to those most in need. This idea has a surprisingly long history in America, and forms of GMI have repeatedly proven to be effective in lifting families out of economic hardship.
Why
The greatest natural resource in this country is, and has always been, we the people.
But too many Americans are spending most of their time simply surviving — constantly worried about feeding themselves, feeding their family, having decent health care, finding a place to even live. GMI provides the basic economic security to have... freedom. The freedom to raise your children. The freedom to start your own business. The freedom to choose where you work. The freedom to volunteer. The freedom to vote.
The freedom to pursue the American Dream.
That’s what RGMII is about — creating a level playing field where everyone gets a fair shot. Where everyone has the basics they need to unlock what could be the greatest amount of human potential in the history of our country. We, the people.
How
The initial seed funding for RGMII is from our family. But the on-the-ground work relies on people who have been doing this for a very long time, at GiveDirectly and OpenResearch. We’re here to lift up and empower existing communities and local organizations within counties. To build a better, more prosperous America, one rural county at a time.
RGMII funded three rural county programs, and with your support, will keep going, three counties at a time, improving every 16 months based on what we learned, until we reach counties in all 50 states of this great country. We hope this can be the largest effort and study of its kind, if we do it together, if we truly believe in our hearts that all of our fellow Americans deserve the same fair shot at what we founded this country on: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. RGMII gives folks the breathing room they need to pursue their own happiness.
The potential of the American Dream becomes vastly greater as more people have access to it, when we share it with our families, our friends, our neighbors. A shared American Dream is the most powerful dream of all, because the power of this opportunity, this dream, is not in what it can do for one person, but how it connects and strengthens bonds between all of us.
When you empower a couple, you allow them to build a family. When you empower families, you allow them to build a community. When you guarantee a fundamental minimum income, you’re providing a foundation for those connections between us to grow and thrive, and that is the incredible power and value of community that we will unlock. That is what we’re investing in. Each other. Our fellow Americans.
Let’s dream together, because dreams, like happiness, are only real when shared.