An economically depressed California city might become the first U.S. city to experiment with a guaranteed basic income, with some residents collecting $6,000 a year for three years with no strings attached, Business Insider reported.
Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs said he hopes to enroll an undisclosed number of Stockton's 315,000 residents in the program by next August, the outlet reported.
It is the first government-organized basic income experiment in the United States, Business Insider reported. Other projects include studies in Kenya, the Netherlands, Oakland, Calif., and Ontario, Canada.
Stockton, about 50 miles east of Berkeley, became the first in the country to file bankruptcy in 2012, and is still in recovery, Business Insider reported.
Its median household income of $44,797 falls well below California's state median of $61,818, and the unemployment rate of 7.3 percent is nearly double the national rate of 4.3 percent, according to the news outlet.
The Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration will be financed primarily through the basic income advocacy group Economic Security Project, which is pledging $1 million to launch and help finance the experiment, Business Insider reported.
ESP – founded in December 2016 in part by Facebook cofounder Chris Hughes — is backed by more than 100 of Silicon Valley's biggest names, including eBay founder Pierre Omidyar.
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