LA took a big leap on universal basic income. For most, it was a big help

KRCW

Here’s the deal: $1,000 a month, free, no strings attached. That’s what the City of Los Angeles has provided to 3,200 low-income families over the last year as part of a universal basic income (UBI) pilot program called BIG: LEAP. The idea is to see how people’s lives might be changed by the extra income.

Qualified recipients were chosen in a lottery, and journalist Sasha Abramsky has followed four of the chosen families for The Nation.

“BIG: LEAP has no strings attached. It works on the assumption that if you give people money, they will spend it wisely. And people who have needs will spend it to meet those needs. So if they have hungry kids, they’ll feed their kids. If they can’t afford school supplies, well, now they can afford school supplies,” he notes. “Things that many people take for granted but that people at the lower end of the economic ladder really struggle with, suddenly with BIG: LEAP, those things became possible. And it changed people’s lives.”

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