A California city is planning to give universal basic income (UBI) to transgender and nonbinary residents regardless of their earnings level. Transgender residents in Palm Springs, California are eligible to receive a UBI of up to $900 per month solely for identifying as transgender or nonbinary — no strings attached.
The new pilot program will have $200,000 set aside for allocation after a unanimous vote by the Palm Springs City Council last week. Former San Diego City Councilman Carl DeMaio, a Republican who served as the first openly gay member of the city council, called the program “outrageous and discriminatory.”
“We’re completely opposed to guaranteed or universal basic income programs because they ultimately cause inflation and raise the cost of living on everyone — they don’t work,” DeMaio said in a statement. “But at least some of them have minimum income requirements to qualify, whereas this one is no-strings-attached ‘woke’ virtue signaling to the LGBT community in a way that is not only offensive but discriminatory,” he continued.
Council Member Christy Holstege, who backed the scheme, told The Los Angeles Times that she felt ‘incredibly proud’ of the city for coming down on ‘the right side of history and supporting our trans and nonbinary, gender-nonconforming community.’ She tweeted: ‘In the City of Palm Springs, we are proud to be a beacon of hope to the rest of the nation.
We’ve worked hard to build an inclusive community. Our latest proposes a guaranteed income pilot program for trans and non-binary people.’ Yet the mayor of Palm Springs, Lisa Middleton – who is herself, transgender – said she did not think the scheme would succeed, but voted for it anyway.
‘My serious concern is the ability of these guaranteed income programs to scale up to the magnitude of the issues that are before us,’ she said, despite voting in favor of the pilot program. ‘I have been wrong many times,’ said Middleton, the first transgender mayor in California.
