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Thread: CA - Stockton plans to be first city in US to pass out Universal Basic Income money

  1. #1

    Exclamation CA - Stockton plans to be first city in US to pass out Universal Basic Income money

    An Extra $500 A Month? 100 Residents To Be Selected For Basic Income Pilot Program

    https://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2018...pilot-program/

    By Carlos Correa December 12, 2018

    STOCKTON (CBS13) — A special letter mail carriers are delivering to hundreds of homes in Stockton will hopefully bring a little financial relief in the New Year.

    (I wonder if there's any financial relief for whoever you extorted that from? - AF)

    The money is part of the city’s basic income pilot program. Stockton is the first city in the country to launch it.

    The letter 1,200 people will be receiving over the next few days does not mean people will automatically receive money but it brings them closer to potentially being selected.

    Stockton dad Jose Miranda works hard to save his money, but setting aside a small portion of his paycheck every other week can be a challenge. He says his expenses just keep piling up.

    “Kids you know, my kids. I spend money on my kids the most, I think. And rent, in particular. Food and phone,” said Miranda.

    Miranda lives in a neighborhood where the median income is at or below 46-thousand dollars. It’s one of the areas the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration program (SEED) is sending letters to people who may be eligible to get $500 a month with no strings attached.

    “I think for the people that really need it, it will be good for them, like a lot of people say groceries, rent, car payment, even if you want to help a family member, anything extra is good to get,” Miranda said.

    A team of independent researchers will pick 100 people to receive the money. The purpose is to study how an extra $500 a month impacts people’s health and stress level. Researchers are also looking to see if people feel financially secure.

    “Around this country, especially in communities like Stockton, people are working incredibly hard and falling further and further behind. We have people in our community that work two or three jobs, we have people that are working and still can’t pay rent,” said Mayor Michael Tubbs.

    The researchers will also have a comparison group as part of the program. It consists of 200 additional people who will get a $20 gift card for filling out surveys and provide feedback.

    “People who are working incredibly hard are smart and they don’t have money because they are not good with money, they don’t have money because jobs aren’t paying enough for folks to live and survive. We believe something as small as $500 a month can make a world of difference,” he said.

    People who receive a letter from SEED have until December 23rd to fill out a consent form online. The 100 people selected will be noticed by mid-January. The money will be delivered to those individuals soon after that.
    Another mark of a tyrant is that he likes foreigners better than citizens, and lives with them and invites them to his table; for the one are enemies, but the Others enter into no rivalry with him. - Aristotle's Politics Book 5 Part 11



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  3. #2
    Why only $500?

    Pikers.

    Why not $500,000?

    What's stopping you?

  4. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post
    Why only $500?

    Pikers.

    Why not $500,000?

    What's stopping you?
    We don't want to encourage freeloaders.

  5. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    For more than a year now, Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs and a non-profit organization called the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration have been planning a radical economic experiment: Making Stockton the first city in the country to distribute a "Universal Basic Income" to its largely impoverished residents (the median income in the city is below $46,000).
    And while the city of 300,000 - which recently emerged from bankruptcy after becoming a cautionary tale of the fallout from the financial crisis when it first filed in 2012 - won't be sending checks to as many people as they would have liked, those lucky enough to receive the letters announcing their eligibility for the program will receive them this week.

    Michael Tubbs
    Stockton residents are struggling with stagnant wages, rising home prices due to the city's proximity to Silicon Valley and a loss of middle class jobs - all against a backdrop of the looming threat of automation. The city first filed for bankruptcy in 2012.
    The program, which is being financed by a non-profit called the SEED, will ultimately dole out $500 a month to the 100 lucky finalists for a year. Another 200 will be selected for a "control" group (they will receive a $20 gift card to compensate them for the time spent filling out surveys). At the end of the year, SEED will publish its findings to demonstrate the impact of UBI on recipients' health and stress levels.


    More at: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-...l-basic-income
    ...
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  6. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post
    Why only $500?

    Pikers.

    Why not $500,000?

    What's stopping you?
    We wouldn't want the peasants to get a significant portion of the spoils or there wouldn't be any point to being part of the ruling class, we have to keep them desperate.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  7. #6
    Bah, damn.

    Merge please.

  8. #7
    In how many places does it have to be tried and fail before it is given up on?

  9. #8
    the median income in the city is below $46,000
    Only in CA is 46k a year considered largely impoverished.



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  11. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by angelatc View Post
    Only in CA is 46k a year considered largely impoverished.
    Well, when you pay $20k in taxes.....

    I kid. I'm sure 46k get's you welfare of some kind. Like UBi.

  12. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by phill4paul View Post
    Well, when you pay $20k in taxes.....

    I kid. I'm sure 46k get's you welfare of some kind. Like UBi.
    When a shack of a house costs half a million...

  13. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post
    When a shack of a house costs half a million...
    Most of the 85K to 90K places here I have bought would bring well over a million there .
    Do something Danke

  14. #12
    Will there ever be something California does that doesn't piss me off?
    "Perhaps one of the most important accomplishments of my administration is minding my own business."

    Calvin Coolidge

  15. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by oyarde View Post
    Most of the 85K to 90K places here I have bought would bring well over a million there .
    A friend of mine sold their 2000 sq ft home for 1.2mil recently. they left cali and aint looking back, 3rd person I know of to do so in the past year.

  16. #14
    Problem:

    [...] they don’t have money because they are not good with money [...]
    Solution:

    Give them some money ...

  17. #15
    Quote Originally Posted by Occam's Banana View Post
    Problem:



    Solution:

    Give them some somebody else's money ...
    Corrected.

  18. #16
    What a great way to piss off the many thousands of other Stockton people.
    FJB



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  20. #17
    So if everybody goes on universal basic income, where does the money come from?

  21. #18
    Quote Originally Posted by angelatc View Post
    Only in CA is 46k a year considered largely impoverished.
    I've heard in the Bay Area that 100K is need based.

    We're being governed ruled by a geriatric Alzheimer patient/puppet whose strings are being pulled by an elitist oligarchy who believe they can manage the world... imagine the utter maniacal, sociopathic hubris!

  22. #19
    Quote Originally Posted by Dr.3D View Post
    So if everybody goes on universal basic income, where does the money come from?
    Inflation, which means that anyone who holds cash will lose its value at an alarming rate and the UBI rate will need to constantly go up to compensate for the inflation and hard asset holders will not want to sell to anyone without charging a price that attempts to compensate for the amount of inflation that will happen before they can purchase another hard asset, then asset redistribution will be added to the left's agenda and civilization will collapse.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  23. #20
    The majority wants free stuff, at the expense of anyone but themselves.

    And their demands become ever more onerous, until the Golden Goose is stifled and dies.

    ...thank god for democracy, amiright?

    ...what ever would we do if illiterates couldn't participate in government...

  24. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post
    Why only $500?

    Pikers.

    Why not $500,000?

    What's stopping you?
    Because a 100 person “test” would in no way represent what the reality would be if implemented on a larger population. The 100 people will be under constant supervision and public relations direction. Widespread it would be nothing but fraud and counter-productivity.
    "Foreign aid is taking money from the poor people of a rich country, and giving it to the rich people of a poor country." - Ron Paul
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    "Debt is the drug, Wall St. Banksters are the dealers, and politicians are the addicts." - B4L
    "Totally free immigration? I've never taken that position. I believe in national sovereignty." - Ron Paul

    Proponent of real science.
    The views and opinions expressed here are solely my own, and do not represent this forum or any other entities or persons.

  25. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by Mach View Post
    What a great way to piss off the many thousands of other Stockton people.
    Hopefully anyone with sense has already left.
    Quote Originally Posted by timosman View Post
    This is getting silly.
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    It started silly.
    T.S. Eliot's The Hollow Men

    "One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors." - Plato

    We Are Running Out of Time - Mini Me

    Quote Originally Posted by Philhelm
    I part ways with "libertarianism" when it transitions from ideology grounded in logic into self-defeating autism for the sake of ideological purity.

  26. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post
    Corrected.
    Indeed. That, too.

    I was originally going to phrase it that way - but then I decided to just distill it down to the quintessential stupidity inherent in the idea of giving more money to people who "are not good with money", regardless of where the money comes from.

    (But it now occurs to me that it might not be such a stupid idea after all - at least, not if your true objective is to transfer money from the people who are "good with money" to the spendthrifty "stimulators" of consumption ...)

  27. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by Occam's Banana View Post
    Indeed. That, too.

    I was originally going to phrase it that way - but then I decided to just distill it down to the quintessential stupidity inherent in the idea of giving more money to people who "are not good with money", regardless of where the money comes from.

    (But it now occurs to me that it might not be such a stupid idea after all - at least, not if your true objective is to transfer money from the people who are "good with money" to the spendthrifty "stimulators" of consumption ...)
    It's still stupid, the oligarchs are destroying the world that they control, for generations they have been doing it and only technological progress has allowed them to improve or maintain their standard of living and their level of control, eventually the destruction will snowball and the technology will reach a point of diminishing returns and then they will suffer severely along with everyone else.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment



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  29. #25
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    It's still stupid [...]
    In the long run, yes, it is.

    But as one of the more notable (and unfortunately influential) advocates of spendthriftiness said, "In the long run we are all dead."

    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    [...] the oligarchs are destroying the world that they control, for generations they have been doing it and only technological progress has allowed them to improve or maintain their standard of living and their level of control, eventually the destruction will snowball and the technology will reach a point of diminishing returns and then they will suffer severely along with everyone else.
    The key word here is "eventually" - a point toward which the spendthrifts and their enablers will always try to kick the can. That the can must eventually stop is a thing with which they are concerned no more than the gamblers who bet on Zeno's tortoise are concerned with Achilles ...

  30. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by Occam's Banana View Post
    In the long run, yes, it is.

    But as one of the more notable (and unfortunately influential) advocates of spendthriftiness said, "In the long run we are all dead."



    The key word here is "eventually" - a point toward which the spendthrifts and their enablers will always try to kick the can. That the can must eventually stop is a thing with which they are concerned no more than the gamblers who bet on Zeno's tortoise are concerned with Achilles ...
    I believe that "eventually" will blossom while some of the current Oligarchs are still alive but I think that they have been getting dumber each generation for a century or two and they are now too stupid to realize that they have reached the end of the road.

    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  31. #27
    Will ‘basic income’ become the California norm? Stockton starts $500 no-strings payments

    https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article226280230.html

    BY ALEXANDRA YOON-HENDRICKS

    FEBRUARY 15, 2019 03:30 AM,

    UPDATED FEBRUARY 15, 2019 10:24 AM

    After months of planning, Stockton is sending debit cards loaded with $500 to a select group of residents starting Friday as part of a closely watched experiment in universal basic income, the first led by a U.S. city.

    Stockton, once dubbed “America’s foreclosure capital,” was the largest city to seek bankruptcy protection before Detroit’s 2013 filing. During the recession, unemployment soared toward 20 percent, and violent crime rose. Today, one in four residents lives below the poverty line, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

    Now, as the city slowly recovers from financial disarray, officials and advocates look to the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration, or SEED, to provide insight on whether a long-term basic income program is a viable creative approach to lifting residents out of poverty.


    “The need has only been reiterated” in the last few weeks of preparation, SEED director Sukhi Samra said. “Folks are ready to use this money to pay bills, to save for the future, to pay off debt and pay for medicine.”


    Each month for 18 months, 130 adults living in the city’s lower-income neighborhood will receive $500 to spend however they want. Researchers with SEED will track, study and analyze how the income boost affects residents’ spending and saving habits, and how it influences other factors such as quality of life and financial stability.

    The money for the program comes partially from a $1 million grant from the Economic Security Project, a network organization that has raised $10 million to fund and explore universal basic income programs and their viability. Another $2 million for the program comes from foundations and individual donors, according to ESP spokeswoman Saadia McConville.

    “I think (the program) will make people work better and smarter and harder,” Mayor Michael Tubbs told NPR last year. “We’re not just designed just to work all day and run a rat race. We’re designed to be in community, to volunteer, to vote, to raise our kids. And I think the more inputs and investments we can give in people to do those things, the better off we are as a community.”

    Last year, 4,200 letters were randomly sent to individuals living in areas with a median household income at or below $46,033, the city’s median at the time.

    That approach let the program target poorer communities while allowing selection of a diverse pool of participants, Samra said. The only other eligibility requirement was that participants be at least 18 years old.

    From the respondents, SEED selected a group of 130 recipients taking into account the city’s gender, age and racial diversity, Samra said.

    Researchers will regularly check in with recipients to conduct quantitative surveys and qualitative interviews — “How are people feeling? How are people spending money? Are people spending more time with families? How are health outcomes changing?” Samra said.

    The idea of universal basic income is simple — giving money to everyone, regardless of income level or employment status, with no restrictions on the expenditures.


    As wages, particularly for low-skilled workers, have failed to keep up with inflation, and experts warn technological developments in nearby Silicon Valley herald an artificial intelligence revolution that could make many low-wage jobs obsolete, universal basic income has gained attention as a policy idea to address wealth inequality.

    In California, U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris proposed a bill last year what would provide middle class and working families a tax credit of up to $6,000 a year that could be accessed as a monthly check of up to $500. Gov. Gavin Newsom has said he supports pilot universal basic income programs.

    Several other countries conducted similar cash-transfer experiments, including Finland and Canada. Tech incubator Y Combinator conducted a feasibility study in Oakland that gave a few dozen residents between $1,500 and $2,000 beginning in 2016, and will soon conduct an expanded trial involving 1,000 people across two U.S. states.

    But UC Berkeley public policy and economics professor Hilary Hoynes said interpretations of what constitutes success for a universal basic income pilot program vary. Will more individuals be able to shift toward jobs pursuing their interests with fewer worries about living paycheck to paycheck, or will fewer people work in the labor market all together — and is that a good thing?

    Both programs in Finland and Canada have ended, with no plans to continue or expand.

    Moreover, to implement a feasible universal basic income program, Hoynes said, policymakers and advocates would need to grapple with whether payments should be pegged to income levels – whether, when “you earn $20,000 or $60,000 or $100,000, (governments) start tapering out benefits,” for example.

    “A universal payment of $12,000 per year to each adult U.S. resident over age 18 would cost roughly $3 trillion per year,” reads a new National Bureau of Economic Research working paper by Hoynes and UC Berkeley professor Jesse Rothstein.

    Still, Hoynes said, there could be benefits to a pilot program such as SEED to better understand what recipients spend their money on, and the long-term effects of modest income increases on educational or employment decisions, in spite of its sample size and short duration.


    Hoynes isn’t convinced universal basic income will be the solution to mass unemployment spurred by an artificial intelligence revolution, but she does believe the concepts are helpful in discussions about wage stagnation among low-skilled workers.

    For Samra, SEED is doing just that – fostering a dialogue to help reimagine social welfare and benefit programs for Americans.


    “SEED has already contributed to that conversation and re-conceptualizing what dignity is and not tying to work,” she said. “Around deservedness and the poor and the working poor.”

    SEED hopes to feature the stories of some recipients beginning in March. The program will run until August 2020.

  32. #28
    Quote Originally Posted by Anti Federalist View Post
    Each month for 18 months, 130 adults living in the city’s lower-income neighborhood will receive $500 to spend however they want. [...]

    “I think (the program) will make people work better and smarter and harder,” Mayor Michael Tubbs told NPR last year.
    So giving "free" money to people makes them work "better and smarter and harder".

    Who knew? I mean, it's not like everything we know about human action in general and economics in particular tells us otherwise ...

    “We’re designed to be in community, to volunteer, to vote, to raise our kids. And I think the more inputs and investments we can give in people to do those things, the better off we are as a community.”
    LOL @ "We're designed [...] to vote" ...

    Strip away all the glad-handing happy-talk about "community" and "rais[ing] our kids" and this guy is basically just telling us that he's providing the "inputs and investments" for paying people to vote. That's no surprise, of course - but coming right out and saying so is pretty unusual.
    Last edited by Occam's Banana; 02-16-2019 at 06:53 PM.
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