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Cambridge expands guaranteed income program to all eligible families

Jul 24, 2023
Cities around the country have been using some of their COVID relief funding to pilot guaranteed income programs. Cambridge is the first to expand it to all eligible families.
Starting in late June, about 2,000 families in Cambridge, Massachusetts will receive $500-a-month cash payments, no strings attached, for the next year and a half.
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Programs pilot guaranteed income for artists

Jul 5, 2022
Most guaranteed income programs are geared at disadvantaged populations. These are tied to people's work.
Organizations in New York, San Francisco and St. Paul are piloting guaranteed income programs for artists. Recipients don’t necessarily have to put the funds toward art.
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Does universal basic income discourage work? Maybe not, new data says.

We're learning more about what happens when the government gives people money without conditions.
New data from the first year of a universal basic income program in Stockton, California, suggests worries over work incentives might be overblown.
Timothy A. Clary/AFP/Getty Images

The need for an equity-based universal basic income

Aug 21, 2020
José Quiñonez says a targeted, data-driven system will help us during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Universal basic income, blockchain and more: Reimagining the next decade

"If people don't have money in their pockets, then this type of economy that we have can't work," says Wharton professor Mauro Guillén.
Mauro Guillén says that the future uses of blockchain, the underlying technology for cryptocurrencies, include incentivizing "prosocial behavior" like energy conservation.
Petras Malukas/AFP via Getty Images

The Economy Reimagined, Part 1: Dealing with Inequality

Amid the wreckage of 2020, are there opportunities to fix what was already broken, including the system of human relationships we call the economy?
Pictured: Hundreds of people wait in line for hours at a downtown Brooklyn office for their EBT Food Stamp cards on May 12, 2020 in New York City.
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What if COVID-19 checks were a regular occurrence?

"You just get a much bigger fiscal bang for the buck," says Mark Blyth, the economics professor and author of "Angrynomics."
"We're managing to do it right now in the COVID pandemic. We send people checks," Blyth says. "Imagine if those checks were endowment checks."
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For public good, not for profit.

COVID-19 relief: Direct checks and a 90-day tax extension

Mar 17, 2020
"Americans need cash now," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says at a press conference.
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California city experiments with guaranteed income of $500 per month

Nov 4, 2019
Supporters of the pilot program say it's a step toward economic equality.
Jovan Bravo, 31, is one of 125 residents of Stockton, CA receiving a $500 monthly stipend from a pilot project testing the concept of universal basic income.
Sammy Caiola