WELFARE
When will the beneficiaries start receiving $800 payments in California?
Just 30 people from Palm Springs will receive the payments as part of a guaranteed income program aimed at trialling universal basic income.
A handfull of residents in California are set to receive their first guaranteed income payments in the coming day. Come 15 May, 30 residents in Palm Springs will receive the first of their $800 checks, which will continue for 18 months until November 2024.
The non-profit organizations Queer Works and DAP Health are responsible for championing this new program with half a million dollars of funding from the city of Palm Springs.
People who were approved had to meet certain eligibility criteria for this new program:
- Are clients of either of the nonprofit agencies noted above.
- Have an income 30% or lower than the median income of Riverside County, which is less than $16,600 a year for a single-person household.
- Be considered primary residents of Palm Springs. Being homeless in the county counts.
However, the application period for the program has ended.
How does guaranteed income work?
Universal basic income (UBI), sometimes known as guaranteed income, would provide a regular payment to citizens whether they were in work or not.
The idea behind it is that it would decrease poverty and allow people to have a level of money without any dictation from salary or benefits. Outside of raw economics it would give people the chance to work less and live more fulfilling lives in being able to choose jobs they want to do rather than what they have to do to survive.
Criticism of the programs comes from a belief that they might disincentivize work. However, researchers at MIT and Harvard found that programmes like UBI had little impact on employment behaviour.