A couple of years ago, Moriah Rodriguez was forced to move out of her apartment in Denver, Colo. It was October.
几年前,莫里亚·罗德里格斯(Moriah Rodriguez)被迫搬离了她在科罗拉多州丹佛的公寓。那是十月份。
And because Moriah didn't have another place of her own to go, she and her kids suddenly found themselves homeless.
由于莫里亚没有其他住处可去,她和孩子们突然发现自己无家可归。
I just kept applying to whatever I could - you know what I mean? - any resources, anything. I was up early in the morning, just nonstop trying to figure out what was my next move.
我不断地申请我能申请的一切——你明白我的意思吗?——任何资源,任何东西。我一大早就起床,不停地想着下一步该怎么做。
One night, the five of them would crash at her parents. The next, they'd stay at a motel.
一天晚上,他们五个人会去她父母家过夜。第二天,他们会住在汽车旅馆。
I was just trying to keep it together for them but inside, like, breaking down, you know? I just remember, like, sitting in the car, praying, you know, asking God, like, help me 'cause I don't know what to do.
我只是想为他们保持镇定,但内心却崩溃了,我只记得,我坐在车里祈祷,求上帝帮助我,因为我不知道该怎么办。
Then Moriah got a call that kind of changed her life. Her daughter heard about this local nonprofit that was offering a thousand bucks a month, no strings attached. So she looked into it.
然后莫里亚接到了一个改变她生活的电话。她的女儿听说当地一家非营利组织每月提供一千美元,没有任何附加条件。所以她调查了一下。
It was just like, we're going to give you money, and then you do a survey every month, and we pay you for the survey. And I'm like, what? You know, I'm like, this isn't real. But it was real.
就像,我们会给你钱,然后你每个月做一次调查,我们会付钱给你。我当时想,什么?这不是真的。但这是真的。
This is THE INDICATOR FROM PLANET MONEY, I'm Wailin Wong. And I'm Adrian Ma.
这里是THE INDICATOR FROM PLANET MONEY,我是Wailin Wong。我是Adrian Ma。
The money Moriah was offered was part of an experiment, a kind of experiment that we've actually been seeing all around the country.
莫里亚获得的资金是一个实验的一部分,这种实验我们在全国各地都见过。
But this experiment was looking to test whether giving homeless people a guaranteed cash payment every month would make a difference in their lives and the cities they live in.
但这个实验是想测试每月给无家可归的人一笔有保障的现金,是否会对他们的生活和他们所居住的城市产生影响。
Today on the show, we'll talk about how one entrepreneur brought this idea to Denver, what the people behind this experiment learned from rolling it out and what happened to Moriah.
今天在节目中,我们将讨论一位企业家如何将这个想法带到丹佛,这个实验背后的人从实施中学到什么,以及莫里亚发生了什么变化。
Mark Donovan is, by most people's standards, a pretty financially well-off guy. For years, he ran a sweater company with his wife at the time.
按照大多数人的标准,马克·多诺万(Mark Donovan)是一个经济上相当富裕的人。多年来,他和当时的妻子经营着一家毛衣公司。
And back in 2020, Mark says he was struck by the vast economic disparities exposed by the pandemic.
2020年,马克说,疫情暴露出的巨大经济差距令他震惊。
As COVID was hitting, I was seeing people losing their sources of income and their stability. And at the same time, I was seeing this incredible appreciation and wealth.
在新冠疫情爆发时,我看到人们失去了收入来源和稳定性。与此同时,我看到了令人难以置信的升值和财富。
You might remember, many people got furloughed from their jobs. For a few months, the unemployment rate was in the double digits.
你可能还记得,许多人被迫休假。几个月来,失业率一直保持在两位数。
At the same time, the stock market was doing really well, and that was especially true for a very large bet Mark made on a certain auto company.
与此同时,股市欣欣向荣,马克对某家汽车公司的大赌注尤其如此。
I put almost all of my investable net worth into Tesla. Huh, OK. Yeah. You know, I studied economics, and I know about diversifying portfolios. But I also know about investing in things you really believe in.
我几乎把所有可投资净资产都投入了特斯拉。嗯,是的。我学过经济学,我知道如何分散投资组合。但我也知道如何投资你真正相信的东西。
So Mark, we've established, is a big better. Yeah, I mean, he has investable net worth. It's like, where do I get some of that?
所以,我们已经确定,马克是一个更好的人。是的,我的意思是,他有可投资的净资产。就像,我从哪里得到一些?
But Mark says his investment increased by 10 times. And he found himself sitting on this massive increase in wealth in the middle of a pandemic. And he thought, maybe I can do some good here.
但马克说他的投资增加了10倍。他发现自己在疫情期间财富大幅增加。他想,也许我可以在这里做点好事。
And so I just started doing $1,000 individual grants to people who had been impacted by COVID. No tax breaks - you know, I wasn't thinking about it from any other standpoint than, what can I do to have immediate impact in this moment?
于是我开始向受到疫情影响的人提供1000美元的个人补助。没有税收减免——我没有从任何其他角度考虑这件事,只是想着,我能做些什么来立即产生影响?
And this experience of giving cash, not to a charity but directly to people in need, tipped Mark into a rabbit hole. He began digging deeper into research on things like direct giving and universal basic income. He got UBI pilled. Is that a thing? Mark is that thing.
这种不是向慈善机构而是直接向有需要的人提供现金的经历让马克陷入了困境。他开始深入研究直接捐赠和全民基本收入(UBI)等问题。他得到了UBI补助。这是真的吗?马克就是这样的人。
The field of guaranteed income has a lot of evidence backing the efficacy of it, and it's completely, in my opinion, underutilized. And, you know, I think it can really help us to create a more thriving society.
有很多证据支持保障收入领域的有效性,在我看来,它完全没有得到充分利用。我认为它真的可以帮助我们创造一个更加繁荣的社会。
And Mark thought, we should try something like this in Denver. But it can't just be him just helping out a couple of people here and there.
马克想,我们应该在丹佛尝试这样的事情。但他不能只是偶尔帮助几个人。
It had to be bigger in scale. And so to get the ball rolling on this UBI experiment, Mark says he put in $500,000 of his own money.
规模必须更大。因此,为了启动这项UBI实验,马克说他投入了50万美元。
I had seen enough potential and possibility that I was ready to put my own money down. And with that, we then went to foundations. And I think they saw - OK, well, if he's willing to commit his money, maybe we can get behind him and run this experiment.
我已经看到了足够的潜力和可能性,我准备投入自己的资金。然后,我们去了基金会。我想他们看到了——好吧,如果他愿意投入资金,也许我们可以支持他并进行这项实验。
With additional funds from foundations and the City of Denver, Mark raised about $9 million for what would become the Denver Basic Income Project. And to make it scientific, they teamed up with researchers like Katie Calhoun.
在基金会和丹佛市的额外资金支持下,马克为丹佛基本收入项目筹集了约900万美元。为了使其科学化,他们与凯蒂·卡尔霍恩等研究人员合作。
I'm an assistant professor at Ohio State University's College of Social Work. And before that, I was a Ph.D. student at University of Denver working with the Center for Housing and Homelessness Research.
我是俄亥俄州立大学社会工作学院的助理教授。在此之前,我是丹佛大学的博士生,在住房和无家可归者研究中心工作。
With the help of local nonprofits, Katie and her colleagues recruited about 800 people experiencing homelessness.
在当地非营利组织的帮助下,凯蒂和她的同事招募了大约800名无家可归者。
These people were then divided into three groups. Group A would receive a thousand bucks a month for 12 months.
然后这些人被分成三组。A组每月将获得1000美元,为期12个月。
Group B would get $6,500 the first month and $500 a month thereafter. So they received the same total amount as group A, but they got about half of it up front.
B组第一个月将获得6500美元,此后每月获得500美元。他们收到的总金额与A组相同,但他们先拿到了大约一半。
And finally, group C - sort of the control group - only got $50 a month.
最后,C组(类似对照组)每月只得到50美元。
Randomly assigning folks to different payment groups, the idea was that we'd be able to actually test, like, what is the impact of guaranteed income based on the different amounts that folks were getting.
随机将人们分配到不同的付款组,我们的想法是能够实际测试,例如,根据人们获得的不同金额,保证收入的影响是什么。
The payments started rolling out to participants in November of 2022, and they weren't told how to spend the money.
付款于2022年11月开始向参与者发放,但他们没有被告知如何花这笔钱。
About a year in, a picture is starting to emerge of how these payments affected people's lives.
大约一年后,这些付款如何影响人们生活的图景开始浮现。
For instance, people who got the larger payments were more likely to say they could cover their bills and find full-time employment than those in the $50 group.
例如,与50美元组的人相比,获得较大付款的人更有可能说他们可以支付账单并找到全职工作。
But what's almost even more interesting, Katie says, is how these payments affected people's experience with homelessness.
但凯蒂说,更有趣的是,这些付款如何影响人们的无家可归经历。
Folks in all three of the payment groups improved their housing situation.
所有三个付款组的人们都改善了住房状况。
Each group saw a big decrease in the number of nights they spent unsheltered. And 10 months into the project, almost half the participants in each group found access to independent housing.
每个组都发现他们无家可归的夜晚数量大幅减少。项目进行10个月后,几乎每个小组的一半参与者都找到了独立住房。
Mark says it's not clear why the group only getting $50 a month would see similar improvement on housing stability to the group that got $1,000 a month. But talking to participants, he says, they have some ideas.
马克说,不清楚为什么每月只得到50美元的小组在住房稳定性方面会与每月得到1000美元的小组有类似的改善。但他表示,与参与者交谈后,他们有一些想法。
Paying $50, one woman said to us it was enough that I could pay to sleep on somebody's sofa, and that gave me the stability to enable me to get employed.
一位女士说,我支付了50美元,这足以让我支付睡在别人的沙发上的费用,这让我获得了稳定的生活,让我能够找到工作。
That is so interesting that, for some people, just 50 bucks made a big difference.
这很有趣,对于一些人来说,仅仅50美元就能带来很大的不同。
Yeah, it is interesting. Though, Mark and Katie are careful to say that it is still early in the project, and it'll take time to tease out what other factors might have made a difference for participants, such as access to other services or access to a smartphone.
是的,这很有趣。不过,马克和凯蒂谨慎地表示,该项目还处于早期阶段,还需要时间来梳理出其他可能对参与者产生影响的因素,例如获得其他服务或使用智能手机。
But they say they're still encouraged by the results. The other thing that we saw was a decrease in utilization of public services - so ambulance rides, days in hospitals, days in jail, days in shelters.
但他们表示仍对结果感到鼓舞。我们看到的另一件事是公共服务的利用率下降——救护车、住院天数、入狱天数、收容所天数。
The city of Denver is spending as much as $40,000 or more to provide shelter and medical services to people experiencing homelessness.
丹佛市花费了40000美元或更多,为无家可归者提供住所和医疗服务。
And if we can, with an investment of $12,000, accelerate a large portion of people in this space to housing, that's really valuable and powerful.
如果我们能够通过12000美元的投资,加速这一领域的大部分人获得住房,那么这确实很有价值和意义。
Right now, the plan for the Denver Basic Income Project is to continue for a second year, and participants will continue to get payments, even if they find housing and jobs.
目前,丹佛基本收入项目的计划将持续第二年,参与者将继续获得付款,即使他们找到了住房和工作。
The Basic Income Project and what they're doing, it gives people hope.
基本收入项目及其所做的事情给人们带来了希望。
That is Moriah Rodriguez again. Remember, when we first met her, she was houseless - a situation made even tougher by the fact that she has a disability, a traumatic brain injury that's made it hard for her to hold down work.
那是莫里亚·罗德里格斯。记住,我们第一次见到她时,她无家可归——由于她有残疾,脑外伤使她很难继续工作,这种情况使她的情况更加艰难。
And that's why Moriah says that extra $1,000 a month that she'd been getting from the Basic Income Project was so important. With it, she was able to find a new place to live and actually afford it.
这就是为什么莫里亚说她从基本收入项目获得的每月1000美元额外补助如此重要。有了这笔钱,她能够找到一个新住处,而且实际上负担得起。
I'm in a good space right now, and I'm fully taking advantage of it. Is there, like, a physical place in the house that is just, like, your favorite? My room. And it's everybody else's, too.
我现在的生活条件很好,我充分利用了它。家里有没有一个地方是你最喜欢的?我的房间。也是其他人的房间。
Now that life is more stable, Moriah told us she's in a job training program for people with disabilities, and she's working on her GED. Her kids are also happier.
现在生活更加稳定了,莫里亚告诉我们她正在参加一个残疾人职业培训计划,她正在努力获得普通教育发展证书。她的孩子们也更快乐了。
It feels like we're living instead of surviving. Instead of being on the hustle and bustle, being here and being there, we have our own home.
感觉我们是在生活,而不是在生存。我们不再忙忙碌碌,不再东奔西跑,而是有了自己的家。
We mentioned at the start that various basic income experiments have been happening around the country. And it's worth noting, so far, the research on their effectiveness has been kind of mixed.
我们在开始时提到,全国各地都在进行各种基本收入实验。值得注意的是,到目前为止,对其有效性的研究有点混杂。
But based on what they've seen so far in Denver, Mark, Katie and Moriah argue that it is something that other cities might want to consider.
但根据他们目前在丹佛的看到的情况,马克、凯蒂和莫里亚认为其他城市也可能会考虑这一点。