If 100 homeless people were given $750 per month for a year, no questions asked, what would they spend it on?

That question was at the core of a controlled study conducted by a San Francisco-based nonprofit and the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.

The results were so promising that the researchers decided to publish results after only six months. The answer: food, 36.6%; housing, 19.5%; transportation, 12.7%; clothing, 11.5%; and healthcare, 6.2%, leaving only 13.6% uncategorized.

Those who got the stipend were less likely to be unsheltered after six months and able to meet more of their basic needs than a control group that got no money, and half as likely as the control group to have an episode of being unsheltered.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20231221131158/https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-12-19/750-a-month-no-questions-asked-improved-the-lives-of-homeless-people

    • Pratai@lemmy.ca
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      11 months ago

      Multiply that by 653,000, and then ask how much you’re willing to chip in to that.

      • Tbird83ii@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        11 months ago

        That is $489M. There are 160M tax payers in the US.

        Everyone gives and extra $5/mo, and we can raise it to $1000/mo UBI. Then incorporate more people as the tax base increases.

            • Pratai@lemmy.ca
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              11 months ago

              $9,000/yr multiplied by 653,000 is $5.8BN per year. Try and keep up.

              • Tbird83ii@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                11 months ago

                Do basic math. If we are talking about $5/mo per person, that means you got $60/yr per person. 60*160M=$9.6B.

                When taking taxes, 1 $10B isn’t a ton of money, let alone half that. And that’s just taking total tax payers at a flat rate. If you graduate it according to income, you could easily make this manageable for all persons. $5.89B is .13% of the total US tax revenue. So an additional .13% of tax revenue to help out .17% of the US population.

                Keep up.