After a slightly rough start, Stockton’s Universal Basic Income (UBI) experiment is officially up and running. Recipients of the program began receiving their first set of checks Friday in the amount of $500 per household.
The program will run for 18 months. There a total of 100 recipients, who can spend the money as they wish. The impacts of the experiment will be studied by two researchers from Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania.
Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs partnered with a UBI advocacy organization known as the Economic Security Project (ESP). ESP contributed $1 million to the program.
“The idea is to provide a foundation, a floor on which people can build," ESP Co-Chair Chris Hughes told CNN Business. “As a moral issue, a matter of economic justice, we should create a floor in the US. The vast majority of people participating are having a hard time making ends meet. The point is to help the people who need it most."