- 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.
Are you sure it’s only real for high-income/low social status people? Even if so it won’t stay that way. The main goal of dystopian politics in America is to cull the herd of demand when supply is low or when supply is artificially suppressed (like with housing). Got too many people with money and great credit pursuing homes with houses going up to a godzillion per square foot in the outback of Montana? Pinch the pipeline before or after they show good credit and money: add more barriers to entry with Facebook scanning. Let the algorithms look for things like “labor union” or “climate change is real” to weed them out, and disqualify anyone with no Facebook, and make sure no one knows this algorithm exists, just say “Sorry, you got outbid,” Hell, don’t even CALL it a social credit system. Let the conspiracy theorists battle each other over what’s going on.
(Yes, I am a Supervillain University Professor. See my course on how to laugh maniacally and be taken seriously.)
I’d further calibrate what you said to this: the solution in the US is to organize with your fellow Americans at large and vote for politicians who will stop the commodification of empty homes before the powers that be start downgrading your standing as a prospective home buyer based on your Facebook profile.
Its functionally inconsequential for normies. These kinds of laws can impact the modern day Influencers and other celebrities, media heads, and mid-tier politicians, when they try to access high end luxury accommodations. And that’s why you’re seeing so much consternation about Chinese Social Credit from folks at the WSJ or on some Hollywood Social Media channel. They know they have to travel to China from time to time for promotions and they don’t want to be stuck at the Hotel 6 Legs or waiting in line for the Chinese-equivalent of the Greyhound, because Beijing has them flagged as “Legally A Bunch of Assholes”.
But for the folks who are already in the proletariat class, this doesn’t matter because they’re not doing anything important enough to get themselves dinged. They’re already shopping Target and living in the Basic Housing Unit and working the Standard Job. That’s the baseline. And they aren’t commanding these enormous audiences or drawing in these vast revenue streams through which they might be denied privileges of their advanced fame and wealth.
What really matters is that basic standard of living. If its high - if you’re retiring at the age of 54 and living in cozy low-rent apartment blocks with your SO and your dog and your 2.3 kids - then “low social credit” is of marginal worry. But if its low - if you’re barely affording a slum while working two jobs as a bachelor who never gets laid - then “low social credit” is the nightmare Westerners can’t abide.
Again, all of this is already a reality for the folks who don’t have a good credit score because they don’t have good jobs or a pile of surplus cash. You don’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to know that poverty exists.
At least in my home state of Texas, the political system is ITSELF a consequence of the credit system. You need money to campaign and run. You need “social credit” to get free media exposure and positive coverage from “neutral” venues. The folks on offer to vote for are the folks with “good social credit”. They’ve already been vetted and have chosen to toe the line on Labor Unions and Climate Change. They’re the ones who survived the weeding.
So by all means, organize. But don’t expect the guys who survived their primaries to save you. Even if your guy wins, whether they’re in the Tea Party or the Squad, their higher status simply exposes them to a more brutal and draconian form of social enforcement. The voting doesn’t matter if you’re not out on the picket lines and in the street in their defense when the political and private leadership class cracks the whips.