A California city gave some residents $500 per month. After a year, their unemployment rate had dropped, while the control group's rose.

https://www.businessinsider.com/stockton-california-basic-income-experiment-unemployment-decline-2021-3

Aria Bendix
Mar 5, 2021, 9:07 AM

It's a decades-old debate: Does paying someone simply for being alive make it easier for them to find a job or discourage them from seeking work?

One city got its answer on Wednesday: A new report evaluated a basic-income pilot in Stockton, California, that gave 125 residents $500 monthly stipends for two years. The results showed that unemployment among the recipients dropped during the program's first year, from 12% in February 2019 to 8% in February 2020.

The experiment's control group — residents who didn't receive monthly stipends — saw unemployment rise from 14% to 15% during that year.


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In addition to a decline in unemployment, SEED recipients also saw a rise in full-time employment, from 28% to 40% during the program's first year. Full-time employment increased less dramatically in the control group, from 32% to 37%.

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A 2018 report found that the Alaska Permanent Fund, which has been distributing cash to state residents since 1982, increased part-time work by 17%. But the cash transfers had no effect on overall employment numbers (the share of people who had jobs), according to the researchers. This might be because more people assuming part-time work for the first time, but the number of available jobs climbed.

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Tubbs has a theory for why full-time employment increased as well: Before the stipends, residents who held part-time gigs may not have been able to afford time off work to apply for full-time jobs.

"It's hard when you're on the wheel to get off the wheel," Tubbs said. "And that's what people were saying: 'We work part-time, we need money today, but if I had the opportunity to apply full-time, I would take it.'"
 

[And many part-time and low income jobs don't have fixed hours.  You might not know if you are on the schedule until the day before.  That makes it hard to schedule interviews.]

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