A study by USC and a San Francisco-based nonprofit has found that a $750 monthly stipend improves the lives of homeless people.

If 100 homeless people were given $750 per month for a year, no questions asked, what would they spend it on?

That question was at the core of a controlled study conducted by a San Francisco-based nonprofit and the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.

The results were so promising that the researchers decided to publish results after only six months. The answer: food, 36.6%; housing, 19.5%; transportation, 12.7%; clothing, 11.5%; and healthcare, 6.2%, leaving only 13.6% uncategorized.

Those who got the stipend were less likely to be unsheltered after six months and able to meet more of their basic needs than a control group that got no money, and half as likely as the control group to have an episode of being unsheltered.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20231221131158/https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-12-19/750-a-month-no-questions-asked-improved-the-lives-of-homeless-people

  • MelllvarEnglish
    -2•1 year ago

    this clearly demonstrates that replacing existing welfare with straight up cash, and changing how that cash scales down as people approach a “normal minimum” income, is vastly superior to our current system

    These experiments aren’t even trying to demonstrate that. And they don’t.

    • @SCB
      1•1 year ago

      Except they do, because they show the value of fungible, no-questions-asked support

      • MelllvarEnglish
        -2•1 year ago

        It’s not “BI” that needs to be demonstrated. It’s “U”.

        Plus, these experiments do in fact ask questions about recipients’ income. Just like regular welfare programs.

        • @SCB
          1•1 year ago

          I think you should reread this thread.

          • MelllvarEnglish
            -2•1 year ago

            I think you’re neither serious nor sincere about making UBI work.

            • @SCB
              1•1 year ago

              Interesting take- Why?

              • MelllvarEnglish
                0•1 year ago

                Obviously because of your “reread the thread” comment.

                That’s not the response of someone who wants a meaningful discussion. That’s the response of someone who wants to end the discussion.

                • @SCB
                  0•1 year ago

                  It’s the response of a person who thinks you’re having a conversation with someone else that you think you’re having with me, based on the not-quite-on-topic nature of your posting.

                  For instance, my first sentence in this entire comment section is

                  We’re honestly not at a point where UBI is sustainable.