[{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/moneydoneright.com\/fast-money\/free-stuff\/mayors-for-a-guaranteed-income\/#Article","mainEntityOfPage":"https:\/\/moneydoneright.com\/fast-money\/free-stuff\/mayors-for-a-guaranteed-income\/","headline":"Mayors for a Guaranteed Income\u2014The First Step Toward a UBI?","name":"Mayors for a Guaranteed Income\u2014The First Step Toward a UBI?","description":"Mayors for a Guaranteed Income and some other organizations are now advocating for a...","datePublished":"2021-08-05","dateModified":"2021-09-23","author":{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/moneydoneright.com\/author\/logan-allec\/#Person","name":"Logan Allec, CPA","url":"https:\/\/moneydoneright.com\/author\/logan-allec\/","identifier":4,"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6e74dd0453a5871d1dcfde6d40d9494765ca8bfdb01927cefee4564d4bee9075?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/6e74dd0453a5871d1dcfde6d40d9494765ca8bfdb01927cefee4564d4bee9075?s=96&d=mm&r=g","height":96,"width":96}},"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Money Done Right","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/moneydoneright.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Money-Done-Right-Personal-Finance-and-Investing-Blog.png","url":"https:\/\/moneydoneright.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Money-Done-Right-Personal-Finance-and-Investing-Blog.png","width":488,"height":60}},"image":{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/moneydoneright.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/mayors-for-a-guaranteed-income.jpg","url":"https:\/\/moneydoneright.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/mayors-for-a-guaranteed-income.jpg","height":460,"width":1900},"url":"https:\/\/moneydoneright.com\/fast-money\/free-stuff\/mayors-for-a-guaranteed-income\/","about":["Free Stuff"],"wordCount":1534,"articleBody":"Mayors for a Guaranteed Income and some other organizations are now advocating for a universal basic income, also known as a UBI. Now if you\u2019re not familiar with the idea of a universal basic income, it\u2019s essentially a program in which governments pay a certain amount of money to all citizens, or at least all adult citizens. And the main difference between UBI and other forms of welfare like food stamps or unemployment is that UBI is distributed to everyone regardless of their financial situation. So there are no eligibility requirements other than just being alive. Again some of the details can vary depending on the plan\u2014for example, there could be a debate about whether to include a full or partial payment for children, whether to include permanent residents or only citizens, things like that. But the basic idea behind it remains the same\u2014you get the money, we get the money, even Jeff Bezos gets the money, hence the name UNIVERSAL basic income.Why Do We Need UBI?Now a lot of people have immediate reactions to the UBI plan, and that\u2019s understandable. It\u2019s a very unconventional idea, and it goes against our intuition that government aid should target the people who need it the most and also goes against some people\u2019s sense that people should have to work for their money and not just be given \u201chandouts.\u201d I\u2019m not here to tell you whether or not you should support a universal basic income, there are good arguments in favor of it, and there are also some good arguments against it, but I do want to explain the arguments behind it before moving on to Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, which I\u2019ll talk about later on in the video.The universal basic income isn\u2019t exactly a new idea, but it gained a lot of visibility when Andrew Yang made it the focus of his 2020 presidential campaign. Obviously he didn\u2019t end up winning the nomination, but he was able to spread that message and get more people talking about what had basically been a fringe position. His proposal, the Freedom Dividend, called for monthly payments of $1,000 to every adult citizen of the United States. Again he didn\u2019t include children in his plan, but that\u2019s another idea that would have to be considered if this ever became a real possibility. And one caveat here is that people who are on benefits like welfare or food stamps would have the option to keep those benefits or switch to the UBI.So the checks wouldn\u2019t necessarily be coming along with other benefits, they would actually be replacing them. And this leads to one of the main arguments for a universal basic income, which is that making the money available to everyone allows you to provide the same safety net without spending millions of dollars on a bureaucracy that\u2019s responsible for determining whether people qualify for specific benefits. According to his website, Yang believes that a UBI would actually encourage people to look for work since, unlike unemployment insurance, it doesn\u2019t go away once you get a job. I think that\u2019s probably true for some people but not as true for others.\u00a0 Regardless, in general, people would obviously be more financially secure and less dependent on their employers for income if they were receiving a consistent income from the government. This could also give entrepreneurs more money to rely on in the early stages of growing a business, leading to more successful startups. So there are some arguments to be made that a universal basic income could have a positive impact on the American working class and our economy in general.That said, there are some good arguments against UBI, for one thing is for certain: implementing UBI would create a massive redistribution of wealth in the country that would rub against many people\u2019s notion of fairness.Some people say it could result in inflation, but the reality is that UBI likely wouldn\u2019t be paid for as much by the government simply printing new money as it would be by taking the existing money in certain people\u2019s pockets and putting it in other people\u2019s pockets.Now like I said I\u2019m not here to convince you one way or the other regarding UBI.\u00a0 I want to tell you about this coalition called Mayors for a Guaranteed Income.This coalition was just created in June, and it\u2019s made up of 16 mayors from cities around the United States including Los Angeles, Seattle, Atlanta, St. Paul, and Oakland. Again the UBI isn\u2019t something that has actually been implemented on a large scale, but several of the mayors have been involved in UBI pilots in their own cities, and it\u2019s still a big development just to have major politicians calling for a universal income in the United States. There have been a few smaller experiments both within the US and in some other countries, but we are still waiting on a full implementation to really see what this would look like in practice.One of the main experiments UBI advocates have been pointing to recently is the program run in Stockton by Michael Tubbs, the city\u2019s mayor and founder of Mayors for a Guaranteed Income. Other pilots are also taking place in Jackson, Chicago, Newark, and Atlanta, and I\u2019m sure there will be more in the near future. As part of the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (SEED), 125 citizens are receiving a debit card with $500 per month for 18 months. SEED is intended to act as a kind of trial run, giving researchers and policymakers the opportunity to see a universal basic income experiment in action. What is the effect on these individuals\u2019 lives?\u00a0 Does it really disincentive them from working?\u00a0 What\u2019s the effect on their happiness?\u00a0 How does it change their lifestyle or spending habits?So these individuals\u2019 expenses are constantly being tracked in order to give us a better idea of what people would do with a universal basic income. And obviously there\u2019s a big difference between running this program for 125 people and scaling it up to an entire city or state or nation, but again these are just the first steps. We\u2019re still pretty far off from UBI being implemented at the state or federal level, so there will probably be a few more of these experiments as they continue to work out the details.Funding is one of the biggest challenges for these experiments, so most of the early tests have been funded by philanthropists. These are people who are willing to donate their money in order to promote the universal basic income and help to generate more data. Jack Dorsey, for example, the CEO of Twitter, donated $3 million to Mayors for a Guaranteed Income to fund upcoming projects. And in my opinion these programs will continue to be dependent on wealthy donors for a while or at least until taxpayers are willing to buy into the idea of a universal basic income on a larger scale, which could possibly never happen.So that takes me to the question from the title of the video, is this the first step toward a UBI? And ok maybe it\u2019s not the first step, but it could be an important one when it comes to turning these ideas into a reality. Universal basic income plans have always popped up from time to time, but they\u2019ve never had sustained support from mainstream politicians like we\u2019re seeing now. When this many mayors of some of the largest and most powerful cities come together for a UBI, to me that\u2019s a clear sign that for better or for worse, Universal Basic Income may not be a fringe idea for much longer.Now I think this is a big development, but I don\u2019t want to overstate things. Do I think any state will create a universal basic income in the next ten years? No. And it\u2019s hard to say whether this movement will keep catching on or whether it will die back down as it has in the past. So overall I think you\u2019ll start to hear more about the UBI over the next few years, we\u2019ve already seen household name Democratic politicians like Kamala Harris and Bernie Sanders essentially propose a limited UBI with respect to stimulus, but honestly we\u2019re still a long way off from the idea really taking hold in the United States at a national scale, and frankly it may never take off in our lifetimes. Maybe I\u2019m wrong, maybe Yang or someone sharing his ideas wins the presidency in 2024 or 2028 and we have a federal universal basic income, but I think there\u2019s a pretty slim chance of that happening in the next decade at least.Alright, folks, just wanted to keep y\u2019all informed about this coalition called Mayors for a Guaranteed Income.\u00a0 Let me know in the comments what you think about UBI.\u00a0 A great idea?\u00a0 Completely dumb?\u00a0 Not sure?\u00a0 Comment below, please keep the discussions civil, and thank you for watching."},{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org\/","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Fast Money","item":"https:\/\/moneydoneright.com\/fast-money\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Free Stuff","item":"https:\/\/moneydoneright.com\/fast-money\/\/free-stuff\/#breadcrumbitem"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Mayors for a Guaranteed Income\u2014The First Step Toward a UBI?","item":"https:\/\/moneydoneright.com\/fast-money\/free-stuff\/mayors-for-a-guaranteed-income\/#breadcrumbitem"}]}]