Credit: Kovi Konowiecki /Time
One evening in early June, Leo and his family were able to enjoy a treat they hadn’t experienced in months: a sit-down meal at a restaurant.
At a fried chicken chain in a Compton, California strip mall, they splurged on a few plates of fried rice, each costing under $13.99. The money Leo, 39, makes as a mechanic never seems to satisfy the deluge of bills that pile up on his kitchen counter each month, so the modest meal felt like a luxury. “It made me very happy,” Leo says in Spanish through an interpreter.
The family was only able to afford the meal because Leo is part of a groundbreaking guaranteed income experiment in his city called the Compton Pledge. In regular installments between late 2020 and the end of 2022, Leo and 799 other individuals are receiving up to $7,200 annually to spend however they like. Leo, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala who TIME has agreed to refer to by a pseudonym to […]
While the government provides these stipends to “undocumented” ILLEGAL immigrants, the National debt continues to soar and inflation continues to rise. That’s why illegal immigrants continue to pour across the U.S.-Mexico border! Joe has promised them all Medicaid, welfare, and stipends. This cannot continue indefinitely. Thanks to programs like these, the debt ceiling is being exceeded and the nation is approaching bankruptcy. Thank you Joe & Kamala!
Michael — I am sorry you have conflated, and misunderstood a whole series of issues, and your post is nonsense. We are a nation of 333 million people. In 2020 Refugee programs admitted 18,000 people. The national debt is not caused by immigrants, it was caused largely by the Republican tax cuts for the rich, and their spending programs also favoring the rich.
Are you also aware that, 44.2 percent, or 221 companies, in the Fortune 500 corporations were founded by immigrants or their children. Of those companies, 101 were founded directly by foreign-born individuals while another 120 were founded by the children of immigrants. Collectively thos immigrants have created millions of jobs.
What an incredibly wonderful and humane idea, to help immigrants and other people in their process, of becoming productive and proud citizens, in our great free country.
This money as it is spent, will indeed stimulate our economy as well. The new tax laws regarding the wealthiest of Americans, may also aid in thousands of programs across the country, that both stimulate our economy, and change the never ending hamster wheel of defeat and debt for the middle and low income families in the United States.