As AI becomes a bigger and bigger part of our lives, the threat of job automation becomes an increasing possibility for many people. Lately, there’s been a lot of talk about universal basic income, the experimental form of welfare distribution that gives unconditional cash payments to people so that they can meet their basic needs.
While not specifically organized around race, the experiment targeted mostly young, low-paid, African American residents, whose income hovered around $15,000 a year. One 21-year-old mother of two, for instance, said that she was able to afford rent as a result of the cash payment, whereas she had previously struggled to make ends meet. Stockton’s SEED Experiment The city of Stockton, California, began a UBI experiment in 2019 that, by all available metrics, has been a big success.