this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2025
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They've been trying it across the world, it's called Universal Basic Income. It's been proven mostly successful every time.
Here's an old article about the US: https://mashable.com/article/cities-with-universal-basic-income-guaranteed-income-programs
It's not "universal" unless/until it's given to everyone. Until then, it's just another targeted welfare program, "offered to a select portion of a city's population instead of all residents", as your link says.
You can't say UBI has been "proven mostly successful" without actually doing UBI, considering its main hurdles are related directly to giving out that much money to everyone. A UBI of $12000/year ($1000/month) for just all working-age people in the US (a bit over 200 million) would cost the government $2.4 TRILLION, yearly.
Even seizing the entirety of every US billionaire's net worth (est. $4.5 trillion), assuming you could convert it straight across into cash 1:1 (which you can't), and cutting defense spending (~$850 billion), the two most common ways I've seen people claim we can pay for UBI in the US, even if defense was cut to literal zero (also absurdly unrealistic), that still wouldn't even cover the cost of this UBI for three years.
Why the hell would we give the rich $12k/year.? It makes no sense for it to be "universal," we should change the branding. Doesn't make it the bad idea you are so eager to paint it.
Negative income tax solves the "rich people getting 12k/yr they don't 'need'" issue. Beaurocracy/overhead has already been mentioned as another reason.