Tacoma Mayor Victoria Woodards. (City of Tacoma, YouTube)
Tacoma will soon have $600,000 in funding to use on a universal basic income pilot program. The city’s mayor, Victoria Woodards, explained to KIRO Radio’s Gee and Ursula why she thinks that program can work both short and long term.
Part of the funding for the program comes from a $500,000 donation from Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who handed out a total of $15 million to cities across the country to fund universal basic income pilots. Another $100,000 is courtesy of the Mayors for Guaranteed Income (MGI) group.
Woodards has long pushed for a universal basic income program as one the MGI’s founding members. With funding now in hand, she points to past data from similar pilot programs as proof of how it can and will be effective in Tacoma.