Why We’re Investing in Mayor Tubbs and Stockton

By Natalie Foster

Mayor Michael Tubbs

A few months ago I called Mayor Michael Tubbs, the charismatic young mayor of Stockton, CA, to hear his thoughts about the universal basic income, an idea that my colleagues at the Economic Security Project and I were exploring.

It turned out he was a step ahead of me. He told me that he’d been tracking the conversation ever since he read Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s last book, Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? in which Dr. King makes the case for a guaranteed income to abolish poverty.

“I’m now convinced that the simplest approach will prove to be the most effective — the solution to poverty is to abolish it directly by a now widely discussed measure: the guaranteed income.” — Martin Luther King , Jr

Many of us came to the idea of a guaranteed income out of a concern of robots stealing our jobs, but Mayor Tubbs understood this isn’t just an idea to solve for a future state of joblessness. Like my colleagues and I, he believes it to be an immediate strategy to fight against poverty and income insecurity today.

It’s because of this vision and leadership that I’m so thrilled to announce our $1 million foundational grant to Mayor Michael Tubbs and the Reinvent South Stockton Coalition to demonstrate the impact of a guaranteed income.

The Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (SEED) is the first ever public-private initiative of its kind in the nation. It will provide direct, unconditional cash transfers to a select number of residents over several years. And Mayor Tubbs is the first mayor in modern American history to step up to provide a guaranteed income to the residents of his city. We hope more will follow.

My co-founders at the Economic Security Project, Chris Hughes and Dorian Warren, and I have been inspired by the Stockton revitalization already in progress and the focus of Mayor Tubb’s team on asking the people of Stockton to be the authors of their community’s future. Collectively, we want to lift up the stories of resiliency and determination we have already begun to hear. These stories will help us understand if and how a guaranteed income can help Stocktonians — and potentially all Americans — make ends meet.

You can read more about the demonstration and donate to it here. 100% of your funds will directly to the pockets of Stocktonians.

Our goal in providing this grant is to explore and learn from the impact of these cash transfers — and the economic security they provide — in the lives of Stockton residents. The initiative will begin with a 6–9 month design period to enable the communities served to shape the program parameters and details including eligibility, payment amount, and who will work as research and independent evaluating partners.

Stockton joins other pilots already underway, including in Canada, Finland, and the Y Combinator initiative here in the United States. While the existing pilots will provide critical data on the impact of cash, the Stockton demonstration will also tell the stories (good, bad, and everything in between) about the experience of individuals and communities when they receive a guaranteed income. As students of successful social change efforts throughout history, we know it’ll take both — the data and stories from those most affected — to move a guaranteed income forward.