More than 12,000 low-income Californians have been selected in pilot projects to receive direct, monthly payments to help meet basic needs. The goal of these programs is to evaluate the impact of guaranteed income programs.
They didn't quite win the lottery, but thousands of low-income Americans are receiving regular payouts from the government as part of a sweeping social experiment aimed at answering the question: What would happen if you addressed poverty by sweeping aside the programs, regulations, the means-testing and the oversight and just gave people unconditional cash?
State and local governments, and some private funders, are launching dozens of pilot projects making direct, monthly payments to low-income residents to help meet basic needs. Researchers will study what happens next. Key question: will this money add to, reform, or supplant current welfare programs?
State and local governments, and some private funders, are launching dozens of pilot projects making direct, monthly payments to low-income residents to help meet basic needs. Researchers will study what happens next. Key question: will this money add to, reform, or supplant current welfare programs?
Four years after Stockton conducted a nationally-watched experiment, giving 125 households $500 a month with no strings attached, dozens of programs throughout California including in Long Beach are testing the idea of a guaranteed income.