Hari Sreenivasan of the PBS News Hour Weekend spoke with Assistant Professor Stacia West on March 28, in a roundtable titled, “Outbreak Reignites Idea of Universal Basic Income” as part of the series, “Chasing the Dream.” She is the co-PI of the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration, the first modern city-led guaranteed income experiment in the US. Her research focuses on universal basic income and unconditional cash transfers.

The federal coronavirus stimulus package that will provide relief checks to some families impacted by the pandemic, has reignited the idea of universal basic income. One testing ground for UBI is in Stockton, California, where a pilot program is underway. Hari Sreenivasan spoke with Stockton’s mayor, Michael Tubbs, the program’s director, and researchers Dr. West and Dr. Amy Castro Baker.

In addition to this project, Dr. West has studied the results of the My People Fund, that provided unconditional cash transfers following a natural disaster in Gatlinburg, TN.

Photo Credit: Snap Jackson Photography

Throughout her career, she has focused her efforts on poverty alleviation researching how social policy can address market failures, and promote economic justice. Regarding the COVID-19 crisis, West stated to The Huffington Post, “When the failures of the market mean families cannot survive a single month without a paycheck, despite having previously worked full time before the pandemic, that is evidence of a broken economic system. This requires us to reconstruct the social contract, and a guaranteed income will be part of that.”

Watch the PBS News Hour episode.

In addition to PBS, Dr. West has been interviewed by numerous other news outlets over the course of the last weeks. They include:

Huffington Post
National Public Radio
The New York Times
Thomson Reuters
McClatchy
Politico