Hundreds of cities experiment with giving people free money

 GOOD IDEA or BAD IDEA?


“Guaranteed basic income” pilot programs are running in communities all over the country, both liberal and conservative. The idea could become the next big public controversy.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (CN) — A massive social experiment is quietly taking place in some 200 American cities — what happens if you give poor people hundreds of dollars a month with no strings attached?

These cities are running pilot programs that typically give randomly selected people $500 a month for a year or two to spend as they please. They collect data on the broad policy initiative, which could replace the current complex patchwork of social welfare programs with a much simpler “guaranteed basic income.”

One city — Cambridge, Massachusetts — found initial results so positive that it has rolled out the program on a large scale. All families with children in the city whose income is less than 250% of the federal poverty level can now get unrestricted monthly payments of $500 for 18 months.

Conservative economist Milton Friedman originally popularized the idea of a guaranteed basic income in the 1960s and President Richard Nixon proposed it in 1969, although it died in Congress. More recently the idea has been championed by a group of Republican senators including Mitt Romney, as well as Democrats such as entrepreneur Andrew Yang, who made it the centerpiece of his 2020 presidential campaign.

In Shreveport, Louisiana, a pilot-program participant named Jessica said that previously “my days consisted of calling different organizations to try to receive assistance to support me and my children,” whereas the unrestricted cash gave her the breathing room to apply for jobs instead.

But the advantage of unrestricted cash, besides being easier to administer, is that it gives poor people dignity. 

The rest of the argument:

https://www.courthousenews.com/hundreds-of-cities-experiment-with-giving-people-free-money/


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