[rossmiller]

Well, to be fair, in a pilot you don't generally see a full implementation of whatever is being piloted. If it works on the most vulnerable population, maybe the program will grow.

[ixacto]

Would it not have been easier to just choose people at random from California’s population? Then it would have been actually universal.

[zsmi]

As long as you're prepared for the political backlash when someone is unhappy with the selection.

For example, if you're randomly selecting 100 people the odds of getting someone in the 1% are ~2/3. Making UBI payments to someone in the 1% would likely kill this experiment.

[ixacto]

There would be political backlash. But there’s political backlash right now with this program because it’s not universal.

If a ubi program is universal that means the wealthy can’t complain that the poor are the only one being it.