Alaska proves solvency.

Another model for statewide implementation of a guaranteed income would be declaring periodic dividends from a state government managed sovereign wealth fund. One prominent example is the annual dividend from Alaska’s Permanent Fund. After oil was discovered in Alaska in the 1960’s, the Prudhoe Bay Oil and Gas lease sale in 1969 brought in $900 million in state revenue. Following the completion of the Trans Alaska Pipeline in 1974, the state grappled with how to invest its anticipated oil royalties. In 1976, Alaska residents voted to amend the state’s constitution to allow the creation of the Alaska Permanent Fund, in which at least 25 percent of all the state’s oil revenue would be placed. The following year, the Fund began with an initial deposit of $734,000. In 1980, a state law created the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation to invest and manage the fund while also creating the Permanent Fund Dividend Program which has paid Alaskans an average of $1600 annually. Since 1980, the fund has grown exponentially from its initial investment with a 2021 value of nearly $82 billion. Administered by the state’s Department of Revenue, every year each Alaskan submits an application, largely to verify their residence in the state, and then receives a check in an amount determined by the state legislature based, in part, on the performance of the fund’s investments. Although the Permanent Fund Dividend is distributed to Alaska residents regardless of their wealth or income, other states could conceivably embrace a guaranteed income model over a universal model and create income and wealth thresholds for determining eligibility for dividend payment. A number of states have sovereign wealth funds like the Alaska Permanent Fund that originated from natural resource revenue or public land holdings. Texas, New Mexico, Wyoming, North Dakota, Alabama, Utah, Oregon, Louisiana, and Montana, all have funds, most of which are used to fund public education. States could establish funds like these to grow wealth for the purpose of a state-level guaranteed income. While most current models began with investment of revenue from natural resources, annual investments into a state fund could also be powered by equitably raised tax revenue.