Building Wealth for Working Families: Guaranteed Income, Baby Bonds, and Auto-IRA
Written by Ida Eskamani
SiX’s June Economic Power Project briefing focused on wealth-building tools for working families such as baby bonds, guaranteed income, and public retirement, specifically Auto-IRA.
Our speakers included Devon Gray (President, End Poverty in California), Shafeka Hashash (Director of Cash Initiatives, Economic Security Project), and Jessica Eckman (Government Affairs Director, AARP). Together, they illuminated how states are taking the lead in designing state economies that center working families from infancy to retirement. Our conversation also highlighted policy innovations, wins in unlikely places, and paths forward.
During the briefing, we also shared resources that can support legislators, legislative staff, and advocates in their push for wealth-building tools for working families:
- Guaranteed Income as a Tool for Stabilization, Economic Security Project
- The Retirement Crisis and How to Fix It, AARP
- Guaranteed Income: It's more than a check, it's the freedom everyone deserves, Economic Security Project
- Baby Bonds: A Future for the Next Generation, Institute on Race, Power and the Political Economy
Meet our Speakers:
Devon Gray is the President of End Poverty in California (EPIC), an advocacy organization founded by former Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs. At EPIC, Devon aligns the organization’s priorities by advancing a statewide policy agenda focused on equal opportunity for all. His work also focuses on changing narratives around poverty away from ones based in outdated stereotypes to ones that better reflect the lived experiences of individuals and communities.
Devon joined EPIC in 2022 as Mayor Tubbs' Chief of Staff and was named the organization's first President the following year. He previously served in the administration of Governor Gavin Newsom as Special Advisor to the Governor’s Chief of Staff and was also a policy advisor for Beto O'Rourke's presidential campaign, where he led the campaign's gun safety and criminal justice reform strategies. Prior to joining EPIC, he was a director with Evergreen Strategy Group, where he advised gun violence prevention organizations on policy and communications. Devon is a graduate of Stanford Law School and the Stanford Graduate School of Education. His writing has been featured in CalMatters, Newsweek, The Hill, and other publications
Shafeka Hashash is the Director of Cash Initiatives at the Economic Security Project. In this role, she is fortunate to hold a birdseye view of guaranteed income work happening across the nation and support the diversity of partners needed to move from pilots to policy through resource development, convening opportunities, training, and strategizing.
As a community organizer, she has led campaigns including the closing a Fair Labor Standards Act loophole that allowed disabled employees to be paid subminimum wages, serving as an anchor team member and mayoral appointee of the Atlanta Communities Over Cages alliance to close and repurpose the Atlanta City Detention Center, and being a strong advocate for the rights of Palestinians, including political prisoners. She formerly was the Senior Coordinator at New American Pathways, leading a team supporting immigrants and refugees facing family violence, Later, she directed the economic programs at the Georgia Coalition Against Domestic Violence where she began the first ever direct cash program through the Google Impact Challenge fund. She holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Political Economy from NYU, and spends her time away from community organizing tandem cycling.
Jessica Eckman is a Government Affairs Director with the AARP national office, with a particular focus on retirement security, paid leave, and age discrimination. Prior to joining AARP, Jessica did political consulting work for candidates at the state and federal level, worked on Capitol Hill, and received her Juris Doctor from Georgetown Law.
SIX’s Economic Power Project:
SiX’s Economic Power Project is SiX's national economic justice initiative, organizing legislators committed to building economies that empower people and advance justice. We recognize that the concentration of corporate and billionaire power in the economy did not happen by accident nor is it the result of inevitable forces. That harmful concentration of economic and political power is a product of deliberate policy choices over decades. At SiX, we know another world is possible – where our economies center people, not corporate and billionaire profits. And that world starts in the states. Learn more and join here.
We are deeply grateful to SiX’s former Nevada State Director Stacey Shinn for her leadership and for organizing this briefing.