The Program in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies
"Starting in February, in Stockton, California, the mayor’s office of the city—with funding from the Economic Security Project, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and private donors—launched a pilot program that distributes $500 via debit card to 125 randomly selected citizens. No strings attached.Co-leading that project is Amy Castro Baker, an assistant professor in the School of Social Policy & Practice, who studies economic mobility and the impact of social policies on gender and race in housing and lending.
Baker, alongside Stacia Martin-West, an assistant professor of social work at the University of Tennessee, is working to collect and dissect data from the project as it continues through its 18-month duration. In October, Baker and her team will release the first set of spending data from the sample.
Here, Castro discusses getting involved in the project, what a scale of “mattering” means, and what she makes of guaranteed income being a more common topic of discussion in the Democratic presidential primary, as contenders like Andrew Yang and U.S. Sen. Kamala Harris make it part of their campaign platforms."
Read more at Penn Today.