Thread by @Mattzwolinski

California has announced a series of #BasicIncome pilot projects, including one that will provide $750 per month to young adults leaving the foster care system.
This is a good idea. Here’s why. 🧵
cdss.ca.gov/Portals/13/Pre…

First, though, this obviously isn’t a true UBI. And it’s not going to tell us much of value about how a permanent, large-scale UBI would work. For a helpful discussion of the limits of pilots, see this excellent book by @KarlWiderquist.

link.springer.com/book/10.1007/9…

But that’s fine. This is a good program, whether or not it gets us any closer to a UBI. Young adults leaving the foster system are an extremely vulnerable population: more likely to spend time in jail, more likely to wind up homeless. They need help, and this program provides it.

Besides, this program avoids the two biggest objections that people have to a UBI: cost and work-disincentives. Even if you want a fully universal BI as a long-term goal, you’ve got to design a program that’s going to be politically feasible. And this is a good model.

First, cost. Narrowly targeted programs, like this one, are obviously less expensive than fully universal ones. And to the extent that you’re targeting young people, there’s a good case to be made that expenses now are going to yield savings on other social services later.

Second, work incentives. This program is giving kids $750 a month. That amounts to just 66% of the federal line for a single individual. And of course costs in California are generally considerably higher. So nobody’s going to be dropping out of the labor force to live on this.

The program avoids one other objection too - the objection based on fairness. Attitudes toward social welfare in the US are highly moralistic. People don’t want to give money to the “undeserving” poor. But that’s why a policy targeted toward *kids* makes so much sense.

Whatever you think about the causes of poverty in general, it’s pretty hard to argue that kids are poor because they’re lazy, or foolish, or whatever. The fact is, they’re just unlucky - born in the wrong place, to the wrong family. The same thing could have happened to anyone.

In sum, even a fully universal basic income is the ultimate goal, I think a smaller program, narrowly targeted toward kids, is good social policy. It makes a powerful difference for an extremely vulnerable good, and it avoids the main political objections to a UBI. Let’s do it.