The City That’s Giving People Money

A closed bank in Stockton, CaliforniaMax Whittaker / Reuters Is Maggie Denang deserving of your money? How about Tomas Vargas Jr.?

Denang and Vargas are residents of Stockton, a high-poverty city on the outskirts of the Bay Area’s technology-and-wealth boom. They are also participants in a much publicized, pathbreaking project, the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration, in which 130 people are receiving $500 a month for 18 months, to use however they see fit. The experiment raises the question of whether Vargas and Denang are worthy of no-strings-attached cash, or whether anyone is, or everyone is.

The program’s proponents have argued that […]

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