California City Tries Universal Basic Income Programs -- Including One Targeting Potential Shooters (latimes.com)

An anonymous reader quotes the Los Angeles Times: Mayor Michael Tubbs, a Stockton native and Stanford graduate who is all of 27 years old, wants to give at least $500 a month to a select group of residents. They'll be able to spend it as they wish, for 18 months, in a pilot program to test the impact of what's called guaranteed basic income... Workers in Silicon Valley and the San Francisco-Oakland area, driven out of the cuckoo housing markets in those communities, have snapped up cheaper properties in Stockton, accepting the bargain of killer commutes... But Stockton still suffers the crushing burdens of poverty, crime and now the rising rents and home prices that come with gentrification. For those who don't have the education or training to work 60 miles away on tech's front lines, Stockton still struggles to develop jobs that pay a living wage...

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Space X's Elon Musk have both pitched the idea in terms of inevitability, given the growing income gap and the threat of massive job losses because of automation... As small as the program will be, it's not going to dramatically affect many Stockton residents, but the goal is to get a sense of whether such an infusion on a broader scale can significantly alter lives and boost the economy.
The program will be funded by private and nonprofit sources, according to the article. And while it may not start until early next year, Stockton is already launching a similar program where the benefits are more targeted. Stockton is about to award stipends of up to $1,000 a month to residents deemed most likely to shoot somebody... The idea is that a small number of people are responsible for a large percentage of violence, and offering them an alternative path -- with counseling and case management over an 18-month period, along with a stipend if they stay the course -- can be a good investment all around.

Comments

Incentivizing what behavior exactly?

[rmdingler]

$500 UBI a month for a select group of individuals, and $1000 a month for an even more select group of individuals.

Hmmm

Re: Incentivizing what behavior exactly?

[Cipheron]

No, because the 10K could be funded by things such as flattening the tax rates, which means more people just pay a set percentage of their income, which brings in more revenue, but also saves a ton on processing millions of tax returns.

Most people won't see a big change in their actual income from that, but the benefit is that if you lose your job, you have a safety net built-in rather than having to go through tons of paperwork and get shunted into a separate "unemployed" system. It's having a separate system for working vs non-working people that creates a big part of the welfare trap: often, actions designed to pull yourself out of the welfare trap end with them suddenly cancelling your full benefits for even trying to earn a *few* dollars more, so the carrot of greater earnings is outweighed by the stick of them cutting off the money you're getting that you need to make rent.

So, abolish progressive income tax while also bringing in UBI to replace the tax credits we're already paying out. It will mean more social mobility from the non-working to working world, and also give existing workers greater bargaining power. If you know that you can still make rent even if the boss sacks you, you have more power to stand up to abusive bosses. It's all inter-related.