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Comment by ixacto | Hacker News Reader

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ixacto·

This is welfare, not UBI as it is only going to pregnant women and those transitioning out of foster-care.

IMO this will taint the ubi experiment overall. Universal means Bill gates and Bezos also receive their $1000/mo…

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I do think the original title (which says "guaranteed income" not "UBI") should have been kept.

> IMO this will taint the ubi experiment overall.

Nothing in the article makes it sound like this was meant to be a "UBI experiment", and I think the goal of actually helping people who are leaving the foster-care system is valuable whether or not it demonstrates anything about actual UBI.

Indeed, it's supposed to be social security for all, not just those aged 67+.

Well, to be fair, in a pilot you don't generally see a full implementation of whatever is being piloted. If it works on the most vulnerable population, maybe the program will grow.

Would it not have been easier to just choose people at random from California’s population? Then it would have been actually universal.

As long as you're prepared for the political backlash when someone is unhappy with the selection.

For example, if you're randomly selecting 100 people the odds of getting someone in the 1% are ~2/3. Making UBI payments to someone in the 1% would likely kill this experiment.

There would be political backlash. But there’s political backlash right now with this program because it’s not universal.

If a ubi program is universal that means the wealthy can’t complain that the poor are the only one being it.

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