By Michael Tubbs, Photo: Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle 2021, San Francisco Chronicle, February 23, 2022
California is a state of contradictions. We are the richest state in the country, but we have the highest poverty rate. We’re home to some of the most successful companies in the world, with more billionaires living here than all but two countries, but we have more homeless residents than anywhere in America.
It doesn’t have to be this way. California’s poverty problem is a policy choice, and it persists because of a fundamental distrust of poor people and institutions that historically have not met people where they are.
When I was mayor of Stockton, we worked to pilot a direct cash-benefit program that gave $500 a month to randomly selected individuals living in a neighborhood with a median income at or lower than the city’s median income of $46,033 a year. Program recipients received money with no strings attached. No drug tests. No work requirements.
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