June 4, 2018

California city to experiment with guaranteed income

Reuters - Michael Tubbs, the 27-year-old mayor of Stockton, California, has a radical plan to combat poverty in his cash-strapped city: a “no strings” guaranteed basic income of $500 a month for its residents.

Starting in early 2019, Tubbs plans to provide the monthly stipend to a select group of residents as part of a privately funded 18-month experiment to assess how people use the money.

“And then, maybe, in two or three years, we can have a much more informed discussion about the social safety net, the income floor people deserve and the best way to do it because we’ll have more data and research,” Tubbs told Reuters....

The idea of governments providing a universal basic income to their citizens has been gaining traction globally. The Finnish government is running a two-year trial to provide 2,000 unemployed people with monthly payments of approximately $660.

In Alaska, each resident has long received an annual dividend check from oil revenues from the Alaska Permanent Fund, which Tubbs said is a model for his approach. Last year, the payout in Alaska was $1,100.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This will go over even worse than the Kansas tax cuts. Thanks god this kid can't actually print money, or it'd be California, Zimbabwe in short order. Still, he's in for a rude, cracked-out, pooping-in-the-streets awakening regarding poor people when they flood his town with their hands out.

Anonymous said...

I'm glad to see a US experiment in UBI. More people with money to spend, will boost the local economy, if the program is widespread enough.