Governments love to conduct social experiments on the masses. What would happen if we gave the most financially vulnerable in our population cash every month? The Denver Basic Income Project just approved a new general basic income program for a select number of homeless people who will now receive $1,000 per month in cash. The money came from the American Rescue Plan Act at the cost of $2 million.
Cash, as in the government is actually not tracing these purposes for a reason. They are targeting around 140 people, meaning this is an experiment. Do they plan to address why these individuals became homeless? Will there be mental health or drug evaluations? Will people have access to information and tools such as learning how to budget or re-enter society? Throwing money at problems is never the solution. Are there any tools to help people re-enter the workforce?
At worst, they will expand this program and continue to reward people not to work. Once they begin to hand out free cash, people will continue to expect free cash. We saw it with the COVID unemployment benefits, where people chose to leave the workforce as it was more lucrative than participating in society. The University of Denver’s Center for Housing and Homelessness Research plans to study this experiment funded by you.