Business Insider

A city in the San Francisco Bay Area is giving some families $500 per month for 18 months — no strings attached

Oakland, California, is about to become the latest city to distribute free money to its residents. Mayor Libby Schaaf announced that the San Francisco Bay Area city has officially launched a basic-income pilot that will give $500 monthly payments to 600 low-income families for 18 months. Recipients can spend the stipends however they like.

“Contrary to public opinion that the rich budget best, they actually don’t,” Amy Castro Baker, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy and Practice, told Insider. “We know from a body of data that the poor budget best because they have to survive.”

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