Author: automata

This is What Happened When a California Town Gave Struggling Folks Free Money for a Year

This is What Happened When a California Town Gave Struggling Folks Free Money for a Year

In an encouraging flip of the narrative, an experiment demonstrated that basic income recipients in a California city showed intelligence and ambition, not lethargy. LPS.1, CC license The randomized, controlled trial in the city of Stockton is being viewed by sociologists as a good jumping-off point for further research into the effects of a no-strings-attached cash injection to alleviate the difficulties of living in the lower-income class.

The project was called SEED (Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration), and it took place from February 2018 to February 2020.

Distributing $500 every month for two years to 125 people living around or below the […]

Universal Basic Income and our social security

Universal Basic Income and our social security

According to the ILO, since February last year, countries have implemented more than 1600 social programs to protect their population from the recession that we are experiencing due to COVID-19. In some cases (the US and the UK, for example) these programs have largely relied on direct transfers to people. In others, such as those in Continental Europe, they have relied largely on the states assuming part of the wages so that companies do not lay off their workers. Certainly most of this effort has taken place in rich countries, which by January are estimated to have invested 13% […]

GUEST OPINION: New focus on poverty

GUEST OPINION: New focus on poverty

Edith Perry is a community activist. – Contributed Edith Perry
Guest opinion

Even pandemics have silver linings and COVID-19 has at least one: a sharper focus on income disparity and widespread poverty in Canada.
With this awareness comes quickening footsteps of reluctant officials and an ongoing pros and cons debate over one concept, a guaranteed annual income.What critics, which include social justice advocates, a puzzle to me, need to consider is that a guaranteed annual income is one tool dealing with poverty, not the only tool.Even the recent B.C. experts panel, two years in the making, is not out right rejecting […]

NYU Establishes Cash Transfer Lab to Study Impact of Universal Basic Income and Related Economic Policies

NYU has established the Cash Transfer Lab to examine the impact of cash transfer policies, such as a universal basic income, on American families, communities, and economies. NYU’s Cash Transfer Lab will study the impact of cash transfer policies, such as a universal basic income, on American families, communities, and economies. Photo credit: cmart7327/Getty Images Effort Backed by $3.5 Million from Jack Dorsey’s #StartSmall Initiative

New York University has established the Cash Transfer Lab to examine the impact of cash transfer policies, such as a universal basic income, on American families, communities, and economies.

“The idea of a universal basic […]

Will AI and automation end the need for human employment so we can all just play and pursue whatever we want

Will AI and automation end the need for human employment so we can all just play and pursue whatever we want

The rich want to stay rich and be on top. Politicians are also in that group.

The rich can’t "be rich" if everyone is rich.

Therefore there will be some artificial fuckery going on to ensure there are still poor people.Either that, or everyone riots and we end up in a post apocalypse but I don’t see that happening because most people are pussies and won’t do anything to overthrow corruption.Keynes assumed around this time, we will all be working say 2 to 3 hours a day and be overwhelmed with leisure time.What will most likely happen is said owners will […]

Column: What will Biden’s $1.9-trillion COVID-19 relief plan do for Americans? Ask Stockton

Column: What will Biden’s $1.9-trillion COVID-19 relief plan do for Americans? Ask Stockton

Michael Tubbs, shown in 2019 while mayor of Stockton, talks about the Central Valley city’s guaranteed income experiment. Speaking from the White House Rose Garden on Friday, President Biden took a moment to reflect on the true impact of his administration’s humongous $1.9-trillion coronavirus relief package , also known as the American Rescue Plan.

“It changes the paradigm for the first time in a long time,” he told reporters and Democratic lawmakers. “This bill puts working people in this nation first.”

Rejecting the trickle-down economics favored by Republicans since Ronald Reagan occupied the White House, Biden added: “It’s time that we […]

Decades-old sloppy analysis fuels mistrust of child allowances

Decades-old sloppy analysis fuels mistrust of child allowances

For the last two years, the city of Stockton, California has randomly selected individuals to receive $500 a month. There are no strings attached to this cash, including no requirements that recipients have a job, contrasting many federal social programs that have such requirements. People who received this “basic income” were 7 percentage points more likely to keep or obtain full time employment during the program.

The majority of economics studies that examined cash payments also show that they don’t decrease workforce participation. For example, for 40 years the Alaska Permanent Fund has given residents of Alaska a yearly cash […]

How Stockton’s guaranteed income shows COVID relief will work

How Stockton’s guaranteed income shows COVID relief will work

Speaking from the White House Rose Garden on Friday, President Biden took a moment to reflect on the true impact of his administration’s humongous $1.9-trillion coronavirus relief package , also known as the American Rescue Plan.

“It changes the paradigm for the first time in a long time,” he told reporters and Democratic lawmakers. “This bill puts working people in this nation first.”

Rejecting the trickle-down economics favored by Republicans since Ronald Reagan occupied the White House, Biden added: “It’s time that we build an economy that grows from the bottom up and the middle out. And this bill shows that […]

How a Guaranteed Income Can Actually Solve Inequality

How a Guaranteed Income Can Actually Solve Inequality

Poverty in America disproportionately affects women and people of color, and that is precisely what hinders political action to address it—even when solutions abound. An ongoing study conducted in Stockton, California, examines how the lives of low-income Americans can improve if they are simply given money—a modest, but reliable source of income with no strings attached. The Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (SEED) randomly chose 125 participants from poverty-stricken residential areas and gave them $500 per month to simply use for whatever they wanted over the last two years. A majority of the participants were women (69 percent) and people […]

Bidenomics beats Reaganomics and I should know – I saw Clintonomics fail

Bidenomics beats Reaganomics and I should know – I saw Clintonomics fail

A quarter-century ago, I and other members of Bill Clinton’s cabinet urged him to reject the Republican proposal to end welfare. It was too punitive, we said, subjecting poor Americans to deep and abiding poverty. But Clinton’s political advisers warned that unless he went along, he would jeopardize his reelection.

That was the end of welfare as we knew it. As Clinton boasted in his State of the Union address to Congress that year: “The era of big government is over.”

Until Thursday, that is. Joe Biden signed into law the biggest expansion of government assistance since the 1960s – a […]