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Background

Launched in 2022, the In Her Hands guaranteed income initiative, administered by the Georgia Resilience and Opportunity Fund and GiveDirectly, was created through community listening sessions to address persistent racial and gender disparities in economic security.

This study draws on two years of survey data, during which the program provided $20,400 to 654 women with low-incomes in three communities spanning urban, suburban, and rural Georgia. Participants were selected through a lottery, with those not chosen forming the comparison group. A survey at 24-months was administered to participants in treatment and control groups to assess nutrition and food security.

Measures

• Nutrition Security, Healthfulness Choice, and Dietary Choice: assessed using validated scales developed to capture households’ ability to access foods that support health while reflecting personal preferences. Items cover three domains:
  1. Nutrition Security: ability to acquire healthful foods without resource limitations or worry
  2. Healthfulness Choice: ability to acquire foods that meet healthfulness needs
  3. Dietary Choice: ability to acquire foods that meet food preferences
• Food security: measured using the USDA Six-Item Short Form, which classifies households as having very low, low, or high/marginal food security based on their ability to afford and maintain adequate food supplies

Implications for policy and practice

Guaranteed income offers a strategy to improve food and nutrition security by addressing the root causes of poverty and health inequities. Since good nutrition is impacted by many factors, policies that provide direct cash support can complement existing programs like SNAP, by supporting families to overcome barriers such as affordability, transportation, and competing costs.

Findings from the In Her Hands study show that guaranteed income produced food security improvements comparable to those observed in SNAP per dollar of benefit, even though cash transfers are fully flexible and not restricted to food purchases. These results suggest that income support can stabilize household resources in ways that support nutrition both directly and indirectly, particularly for households managing high material needs or those who fall just outside eligibility for existing programs.

While guaranteed income alone is not a complete solution, it represents an important addition to the food security policy toolbox. Together with established programs like SNAP, cash-based approaches can help expand the safety net to better meet the needs of households and address the root economic drivers of food and nutrition insecurity.

Acknowledgements

Participants in the In Her Hands pilot and project team

Leah Hamilton, MSW, PhD – Appalachian State University

Stephen Roll, PhD and Laura Brugger, PhD – Washington University in St. Louis

Desha Elliott, MA, Aaron Quick, MSW, and Simone Smith, MSW - Clark Atlanta University

Funding

This research was conducted under contract with the Georgia Resilience and Opportunity Fund, which also administered the program under study, as part of a broader evaluation of the impacts of the In Her Hands program.

This article was funded by the From Now on Fund. The funder had no involvement in the preparation of the article for publication.