#107 In March the city of LA wrapped up its year-long guaranteed income program, Big: Leap. It's an acronym for Basic Income Guaranteed: L.A. Economic Assistance Pilot and it provided $1000 a month to 3,200 low-income families for a year, no strings attached. It modeled itself after other guaranteed income pilot programs — sometimes called Universal Basic Income, or UBI — in cities like Stockton, Oakland and San Francisco. The idea of UBI is to provide extra income without any kind of work requirement or other conditions to, ideally, improve people’s lives.
Our producers followed five of its participants over the course of the year. In this episode we hear from two of them. Plus, Brian talks to an leading expert in guaranteed income programs about how Big: Leap worked and how, in general, such programs can benefit people. Guests: Juan Sernas and Amalia Mendez, Big: Leap participants; Ashley Davis, Big: Leap participant; L.A. City Councilmember Curren Price; and Natalie Foster, the president of the Economic Security Project, an organization that advocates for public programs that reduce income inequality.