Beautiful town in California will pay residents $500 a month as an experiment with Universal Basic Income.
News: https://money.cnn.com/2018/07/09/technology/stockton-california-basic-income-experiment/index.html
Image: www.prowrestling.wikia.com
Just 80 miles east of Silicon Valley, one of the wealthiest regions in the country, is Stockton, California — once known as America's foreclosure capital.
Soon, this city will become the first in the country to participate in a test of Universal Basic Income, also known as UBI. Stockton will give 100 residents $500 a month for 18 months, no strings attached.
The nontraditional system for distributing wealth guarantees that citizens receive a regular sum of money. The goal is to create an income floor no one will fall beneath.
The concept of Universal Basic Income has gained traction and support from some Silicon Valley leaders, including Elon Musk, Richard Branson and Mark Zuckerberg. It is seen as a way to possibly reduce poverty and safeguard against the job disruption that comes from automation.
"We should explore ideas like universal basic income to make sure that everyone has a cushion to try new ideas," Zuckerberg said at a Harvard commencement address in May 2017.
The Stockton project has its roots in Silicon Valley, too. Its financial backers include Facebook cofounder Chris Hughes' organization, the Economic Security Project — a fund to support research and cultural engagement around Universal Basic Income. It contributed $1 million to the Stockton initiative.
Stockton, California, the seat of San Joaquin County, is the fourth-largest city in the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California. With a population of 291,707 at the 2010 census, Stockton ranks as this state's 13th largest city. The city is located in Northern California south of the state capital Sacramento and north of Modesto.
Stockton is along Interstate 5, State Route 99 and State Route 4 amid the farmland of the California Central Valley. It is connected westward with San Francisco Bay by the San Joaquin River's 78-mile (126 km) channel, and is, with Sacramento, one of the state's two inland sea ports. In and around Stockton are thousands of miles of waterways and rivers that make up the California Delta.
The city hosts the annual Asparagus Festival and is the location of Haggin Museum, an art and history museum built in Victory Park in 1931. The museum displays 19th and 20th century works of art and houses local historical exhibits. For much of the later 19th century, starting with the Gold Rush, Stockton was one of the largest cities in the state, for a while the third largest city.