Hello and welcome back to the University of Michigan, Teach-Out on Basic Income. Where we've been talking to a range of experts on basic income strategies, thinking about the construction of programs, and talking about different experiments that are going on and different demonstration projects. I'm really excited now to be with you with Mayor Michael Tubbs. He's the Mayor of Stockton, California and he's been a champion of a basic Income Demonstration Program in Stockton, California. Mayor Tubbs, thanks so much for joining us. >> Hey, thanks so much for having me. >> Yeah, so can you just tell us a little bit about the genesis of this idea? How you, in particular, got interested in basic income and cash transfers as a mode of reducing poverty and reducing inequality? And how the project came about? >> Sure, so in college, I remember reading, Where Do We Go from Here, Chaos or Community, by Dr. King. And in that he talks about a guaranteed income as a way to abolish poverty. So since then I've been very interested in seeing what happened to the idea and how do we help make this happen? And then, since I've done about nine years ago. And now, as Mayor of Stockton, and I believe poverty is at the crux. I mean, the issues we face as a community. So accordingly, I have my team research interventions to eliminate poverty and what that came back was a basic income. And I was like, really? They were like, yeah, that's okay, how do we pay for it? There was a course of that exploration I was introduced to Natalie Foster from the Economic Security Project. And Natalie told me that the Economic Security Project, which are the funders for our basic income demonstration, or one of the funders, the lead funder. They were looking for a seed to partner with to do a basic income demonstration, so I told them, my team, I'd been researching the idea. We're familiar with it and we spent five weeks co-creating it. Now, we're here. >> Yeah, and where is here? Have you started to implement? Is it coming soon? And what's the length and how, what exactly is it going to look like? >> So implementation will start early next year and we just had our research partners. And ideally we'll hit, we're going to do at least a 100 families with at least $500 a month for at least 18 months, I say at least because we're raising on top of the 1.5 million we have. And the goal is to get to about 5 million to serve more families or go for longer. >> And as this has been rolling out have you been talking to your constituents, and what do they think about the demonstration project and the idea of as cash is a way to improve lives more generally? >> I think a lot of them are, from the folks I talked to, a lot of them have shared with me these amazing stories of what they have used the money for, which has been very interesting. And some people are just, well, this is rewarding sloth, their laziness. But after further conversation, it seems like that thought is only because they think that they, for some reason, they won't qualify and they won't benefit. So we're really excited on starting to demonstrate and giving the opportunity and the resources to make good choices. Most people do in fact just that. >> Yeah. So what are some of the things, when you've talked to people, that they've said, I would use this to go back to school or start a business or take care of my kid? >> I heard people say they would use it to go back to school, I heard people say they would use it to pay off debt, I've heard people say they'll use it to save money, I heard people say they'll use it Tt pay for rising rent. For every person I talked to, there's a different sort of answers to how they would use $500 a month, but I've heard from no one they would use it to buy drugs or they would use it just to not work at all. I've yet to hear that answer. >> Yeah, and actually in some of our other sessions, we've been talking to researchers. Found in studies that cash transfers tend to actually reduce things like alcohol expenditures and such over the long term, so. >> Yeah, absolutely. >> So tell us, you sort of mentioned that last sort of narrative, have you faced any other resistance to the roll out of this? Or have people generally been positive? >> Yeah, a lot of people are just confused and don't read, so a lot of people are saying you're wasting taxpayer funds. But There's demonstrations that taxpayer funded. And then a lot of people are saying this doesn't solve very issue. And I think we've been very clear saying this is just not a magic bullet but it's a solution, it's a tool that we can use. And then a lot of people are saying $1,000 is not enough. And I don't necessarily disagree with that, but I know zero's not enough for sure, right? So- >> 500 is 500 times more, I guess, than one. >> Yeah, exactly. So those are the things we've been hearing from people. Or what about the dignity of work? Which misses the fact that 60% of people who work are poor. Meaning that a lot of people who are struggling in this economy are actually workers. >> Yeah. So we're looking at, you mentioned we're talking about starting early next year, I think you said? And going for 18 months. And you mentioned that people might use the money on a whole range of things. If you look forward to that 18 month mark and results to come in, how do you see the Stockton Demonstration fitting into other studies? What do you hope in particular to accomplish? >> Well, I think, we're accomplishing a lot than that what I want to accomplish already. And that's just to elevate the conversation about the economic system of the country and what we can do to make it work better for more people. Even they got wages not raising, even they got massive income equality, especially in among lines of race and gender. If you look at the strung of middle class pretty much disappearing and at the majority of gains in the pass decade have gone into small member of individuals on families. I suggest that we have some work to do. Especially before we get to automation and in robots. So the conversation we've been having about who's deserving? What do Americans deserve? I think that's been a good one, I'm hopeful after 18 months we'll have stories, and people, and characters, that really ground our discussions in. Because I think it's easy to demonize what you don't know or to demonize what you conjure up in your head. But it's different to demonize Mary, who's a single mother from Stockton, who did the basic income demonstration, and did these good things with here money, etc., etc. And so that's what I hope to accomplish. And then they answered the question, so we had this discussion, it's not based on one's biases and prejudices, but what happened in the real world. >> So beyond looking at where dollars are being spent, it sounds like a more important piece of this, is the stories and understanding, how this affects people on a person level basis. >> Absolutely. >> So if you think it goes well, you're generating conversation, how do you see this playing out at the national level, long term, at this point, would you advocate for $500 a month to everyone nationally? Or do you want to continue the conversation to see what the right forms might take over the long term? >> Yeah, well, I think the biggest question is how to pay for it. So I know Chris Hughes in Fair Shot illustrates a path forward with $500 a month for 50k and below. I'd be interested in seeing, kind of, the results of this study and why come here and study. But if they come back how I think they will, I would be supportive of something like that. Maybe, starting scaffolding with folks who make 50k and below as a start. Just because with every major and national program, very rarely do they start with everyone, but they start with the specific part of the population and expand from there. It's been amazing how many people from governor candidates, to senators and to other mayors are curious about what happens to Stockton. >> Yeah. And as you were talking about the design of the study, I was wondering how do you pick those 100 families? Will you spread them out across the city? Or there'll be some sort of lottery? And how do you sort of deal with the fact that one family gets that and their neighbor doesn't? >> Yeah, well, I think for me that's pretty much how the status quo operates generally. There's very few programs that everyone's in or everyone qualifies for by taxes. So I don't see that as big of a concern especially because it's not tax payer dollars, but it's a philanthropically funded program. I think that's a good problem to have if, because we select 100 families and 300,000 other people are upset they weren't selected. It forces us to have a conversation about how do we expand it to more families, which I think is a good thing. Additionally, the research team will kind of help us figure out how we select the people, so I don't want to speak to much about that to get ahead of them. >> Sure. So, Mayor Tubbs, if listeners, viewers wanted to go and find more information and as the stories come out, sort of follow that, Is there a platform by which they can be following what's going on? >> Absolutely. StocktonDemonstration.org is the website. @StocktonDemo on Twitter is the Twitter handle. In my Twitter handle is @michaeldtubbs. >> Has you've become a national leader in all this, has there been anything that that sort of took you totally by surprise in you journey or has this sort of played out as you would've expected? >> You know, I had no idea how energize and excited people would be about this. Or how ready people seem to be for this. I thought this was 10, 20 years away. They included it in the California Democratic Party platform, for example, this year. So the amount of energy around this idea is really, really special. >> Well, Mayor Tubbs, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us. This is, we'll all follow the demonstration with a lot of interest and excitement, and look forward to seeing what happens next. >> Well, thank you so much for having me and the great work you guys do with fighting poverty. >> Yeah, thank you. And thank you for joining us for this segment of the University of Michigan Basic Income Teach-Out. I'll look forward to talking with you in further segments and also joining you in the discussion chats.
