Five-hundred-dollar payments were recently sent out to 100 residents in the small towns, rural corners and city blocks of Ulster County in upstate New York. Recipients can use the extra monthly payments for whatever they need, be it food or a car payment. For researchers, the payments upstate could give them a fuller picture of how increasingly popular guaranteed income programs work. Cities from Compton, California, and Richmond Virginia, are currently trying out direct payments, but this program stretches out over a mix of places, some of them miles from bus lines and supermarkets.
‘It lessens my bills’: $500 payments tested in upstate NY
