Universal Basic Income: Wild Experiment or the Solution to Poverty?
Stockton, Calif., and tech entrepreneurs are exploring whether access to a no-strings paycheck has the potential to end poverty.
May 14, 2021 • Mayor Tubbs’ office has partnered with the Reinvent South Stockton Coalition and the Economic Security Project co-chaired by Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes to launch the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (SEED). Starting in early 2019, 100 Stockton residents will receive $500 a month for 18 months. The goal is to document the effect of a guaranteed income on their quality of life.
Natalie Foster, co-chair of the Economic Security Project, first met Mayor Tubbs at a conference last year, where he told her that he had been interested in universal basic income since reading Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s book,
California Trial of Universal Basic Income Inspires More Cities to Follow Suit
A mother and son walk through one of the neighborhoods of Stockton where participants in the city s universal basic income program live in Stockton, California, on February 7, 2020.
Nick Otto / AFP via Getty Images
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It’s probably safe to say that a few years ago, most Americans weren’t familiar with the term universal basic income, commonly abbreviated as UBI. But more recently, as the idea has grown in popularity among the tech community, and with Andrew Yang’s presidential run putting it into the political spotlight, the idea of everybody in the country receiving a monthly check just for existing has begun to capture the public’s imagination and has become a more normalized part of the political lexicon.
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Sukhi Samra grew up with a mother who worked up to 80 hours per week to support three children and a husband with a disability. None of her three jobs paid her well enough to make ends meet in Fresno, California, in the late 2000s. So she juggled work as a housecleaner with shifts at a Subway restaurant and a gas station convenience store, and still struggled financially.
Samra said receiving just $500 in additional income a month would have reduced her mother’s workload and stress load, she said. Instead, the food worker developed hypertension, arthritis, depression, and anxiety before dying suddenly in June after 25 years of low-wage labor.