125 people got $500 per month free for 2 years. Here's what happened.

[demmiblue]

After getting $500 per month for two years without rules on how to spend it, 125 people in California paid off debt, got full-time jobs and reported lower rates of anxiety and depression, according to a study released Wednesday.

The program in the Northern California city of Stockton was the highest-profile experiment in the U.S. of a universal basic income, where everyone gets a guaranteed amount per month for free. Announced by former Mayor Michael Tubbs with great fanfare in 2017, the idea quickly gained momentum once it became a major part of Andrew Yang's 2020 campaign for president.

Supporters say a guaranteed income can alleviate the stress and anxiety of people living in poverty while giving them the financial security needed to find good jobs and avoid debt. But critics argue free money would eliminate the incentive to work, creating a society dependent on the state.

Tubbs, who at 26 was elected Stockton's first Black mayor in 2016 after endorsements from Oprah Winfrey and Barack Obama, wanted to put those claims to the test. Stockton was an ideal place, given its proximity to Silicon Valley and the eagerness of the state's tech titans to fund the experiment as they grapple with how to prepare for job losses that could come with automation and artificial intelligence.

https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/nation-world/universal-basic-income-experiment/507-768a521c-3f24-497f-b85d-04a81aaf6f97

[brooklynite]

1. Show me data that supports the ability of UBI to be scaled up.

$1.5 M can be absorbed in a municipal budget.

The population of Stockton is 309,000. The budget to provide the equivalent amount to EVERY resident is $3.7 B. The TOTAL City budget is currently $609 M. That would mean a 50% budget increase just for this program. Now, what happens when a tax increase of that size is implemented; what stops people from crossing the border to a lower-tax community?

[panader0]

2. What you say is true, but in Stockton's case,

the state's tech companies funded the experiment.
Someday, as noted in the OP, automation and AI will take millions of jobs.
How to deal with that remains to be seen. UBI is a concept at this point, even those of the 125 people
who received $500 a month may have gotten jobs that could be automated in coming years.
Fast food places will replace workers with automation ASAP. I don't know what the future holds.
Jobs that can't be automated? Or back to the past with small farmers?

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. Every place this kind of thing has been tried has essentially the same results.

[gratuitous]

4. Waitasecond waitasecond waitasecond

Are you seriously telling me that if people have more money they will experience greater financial security, live lives with lower stress and anxiety, have the cushion to look for and get better jobs, and avoid debt?

Has anyone else stumbled across this more money = greater security thing?

[MichMan]

5. Since it appears to be successful, is Stockton going to expand it to everyone?

[demmiblue]

8. Shoo. n/t

[msongs]

6. and where will this money come from if the program expands? nt

[hunter]

7. Many people are simply unemployable.

It's not for any lack of incentives that they end up living on the streets or in prison. Many are mentally ill and/or suffering severe addictions. No magic is going to turn them into friendly retail clerks or valued factory employees.

Prisons and homelessness have a high cost to society. Guaranteed basic incomes combined with lightly supervised housing situations would be more humane and cost less than the uselessly punitive system we have now.

Many of us like to think our hard work makes the world a better place and ourselves better people but that's not always true. This thing we now call economic "productivity" isn't productivity at all. It is in fact a measure of the damage we are doing to this earth's natural environment and our own human spirit. A high income abusive boss working in an environmentally destructive industry, living in a big country house surrounded by acres of poisonous lawns, brings little overall joy to the world.

I think we should be paying people to experiment with lifestyles having very small environmental footprints. We would measure the success of these experiments in terms of happiness. These experiments could be conducted within the framework of a universal basic income, and might be largely self-organizing.

Human beings naturally form communities. It's a characteristic of our species.

[Kaleva]

9. Finland tried something similar with 2000 unemployed with mixed results

"Experiment in Finland With Guaranteed Income Creates Less Stress but No Jobs
Early results from pilot program find a set income doesn’t encourage people to find work, but neither does it turn them against employment"

https://www.wsj.com/articles/experiment-in-finland-with-guaranteed-income-creates-less-stress-but-no-jobs-11549650636