Last year, Stockton, Calif., embarked on a civic experiment. For 18 months the city would send $500 a month to 125 randomly selected households in low-income neighborhoods. Researchers would compare the effect on participants’ health and economic situation to that of residents who didn’t get payments.
The $3.8 million experiment is the brainchild of Stockton’s 30-year-old mayor, Michael Tubbs, made possible by the Economic Security Project—a group co-founded by Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes that funds guaranteed-income…
