NPR, March 9, 2021, Results From The City That Just Gave Away Cash
In 2012, when Michael Tubbs was a city council member in Stockton, Calif., the city was going through a tough time. It was dealing with the fallout from the financial crisis. It was working its way through a bankruptcy. It was also regularly featured in Forbes Magazine as one of “America’s Most Miserable Cities.”
For Tubbs, the Forbes jab was personal. He was raised in Stockton and grew up in poverty. He was elected to the city council at the age of 22, and went on to run for mayor. He won in 2016, becoming — at age 26 — one of the youngest mayors in the country.
Tubbs says he came to the mayor’s office ready to enact some transformative change in Stockton. “I decided that we would call into question the very structure that produces poverty in the first place,” he told NPR in an interview in 2020.
