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submitted 11 months ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world
  • A guaranteed-basic-income program in Austin gave people $1,000 a month for a year.
  • Most of the participants spent the no-strings-attached cash on housing, a study found.
  • Participants who said they could afford a balanced meal also increased by 17%.

A guaranteed-basic-income plan in one of Texas' largest cities reduced rates of housing insecurity. But some Texas lawmakers are not happy.

Austin was the first city in Texas to launch a tax-payer-funded guaranteed-income program when the Austin Guaranteed Income Pilot kicked off in May 2022. The program served 135 low-income families, each receiving $1,000 monthly. Funding for 85 families came from the City of Austin, while philanthropic donations funded the other 50.

The program was billed as a means to boost people out of poverty and help them afford housing. "We know that if we trust people to make the right decisions for themselves and their families, it leads to better outcomes," the city says on its website. "It leads to better jobs, increased savings, food security, housing security."

While the program ended in August 2023, a new study from the Urban Institute, a Washington, DC, think tank, found that the city's program did, in fact, help its participants pay for housing and food. On average, program participants reported spending more than half of the cash they received on housing, the report said.

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[-] ZzyzxRoad@sh.itjust.works 29 points 11 months ago

I've been surprised and super disappointed by a lot of the views I've been seeing in Lemmy comments lately. Anti homeless, judging addiction, fairly socially conservative, buying into the whole retail theft narrative, and the worst has been the misogyny framed as "realism" or some shit.

I don't know, it's not for me.

[-] Zirconium@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago

I've always found people have the most shit opinions if it's a post popular on Lemmy.world

[-] mrbm@lemm.ee 3 points 11 months ago

I’m new to lemmy overall are there some places with better political discourse on here?

[-] Zirconium@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

I've been lazy on Lemmy and just stopped searching for new lemmyverses after I hopped off reddit. But I really doubt you're gonna find good political discourse on the Internet. I'm really disappointed everywhere I turn and I'd rather participate in real life action than argue during the few free hours I have.

[-] fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 11 months ago

What is the retail theft narrative ?

[-] Zoboomafoo@slrpnk.net 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

The "narrative" is that theft hurts stores and stealing from stores in low-income areas causes them to close which leads to food deserts

[-] wolfshadowheart@slrpnk.net 2 points 11 months ago

Just pay attention to the instances the comments come from. This account is federated with .world and I am always seeing the most awful takes on here and it seems like most of the time it comes from users there.

I have another account not federated with .world, but it is with pretty much everything else. There's fewer comments (rarely over 100) but it's usually actual discussion and not revolving around anti-humanitarian practices.

It's not a guarantee, but it seems very very high.

this post was submitted on 29 Jan 2024
876 points (98.6% liked)

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