📚 Oakland To Launch One of the Largest UBI Programs In the US, Giving Some Low-Income Residents $500 a Month With No Strings Attached

RoccamOccam shares a report from The New York Post: Some low-income families of color in Oakland will soon receive $500 a month in no-strings-attached cash as part of a privately funded program, Mayor Libby Schaaf said in a Tuesday announcement. The Oakland Resilient Families program has raised nearly $7 million dollars to help families of color with at least one minor child making less than $30,000 a year. Under the plan, participants will be randomly selected, and white people -- who earn three times as much as blacks on average in the city -- are not eligible. "We have designed this demonstration project to add to the body of evidence, and to begin this relentless campaign to adopt a guaranteed income federally," Schaaf said. The Oakland project is one of the largest in the US so far, targeting up to 600 families. The project is reminiscent of Andrew Yang's "freedom dividend" -- a universal basic income program promoted by the tech entrepreneur while running for president in 2018. The plan involved distributing funds to citizens via a tax on the "big four" tech companies.

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