Marco della Cava, Cassie Dickman USA TODAY Network
After losing a steady job two years ago, Zohna Everett struggled to make ends meet. She drove for ride-hailing services, clipped grocery coupons, turned in recyclables for gas money and traded manicures for press-on nails from Walmart.
Then a phone call changed her financial outlook. Everett learned she had been selected to become one of 125 Stockton residents receiving $500 a month for 18 months, a first-in-the-nation pilot test of a universal basic income, or UBI.
“Everything in me was like, yes!” says Everett, 48. “I needed this right on time.”
Eight years ago, this central California agricultural town known for producing almonds and grapes became the nation’s largest municipality to enter bankruptcy. Now, Stockton is in the news for a project that seeks to lift up low-income residents with a UBI, an oft-resurrected economic idea thrust into the national limelight by the recently shuttered presidential campaign of Andrew Yang.
The idea of free money grabs headlines and stirs debate. While extra cash each month no doubt is a boon to the dozens of Stocktonians in the program, economists, researchers, politicians and labor leaders are mixed about whether this small and privately-funded experiment will provide major proof points in support of a truly national UBI, which by some estimates would cost taxpayers upwards of $3 trillion. …
Cassie Dickman 