Stockton, CA to provide a universal basic income for its poorest residents

time.com

Since this is income-qualified, it's not a UBI, it's a classic means-tested benefit coupled with a lottery (since not everyone in the target jurisdiction and income level will get it.) Now, if the population is identified at the start of the demonstration and no further income testing is done, it may provide some indication (though no definitive answers) of behavioral impacts of UBI on recipients who start in particular economic conditions, but it's not very much like a UBI in general.

Another example of concept dilution. “For its poorest residents” isn’t “universal”.

If they gave it to everyone in Stockton or even everyone in California it wouldn't be universal. One tenant of UBI is the money comes with no strings attached such as only legal to use for food purchases or only available if the person is looking for work or in an approved training/education program, or etc.

In other words, "universal" is quantified across the person's spending and behavior. UBI can be spent on weed to smoke while playing Call of Duty. That's the core. The core is not whether or not astronauts on the ISS get a check.

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