This is on point. I'm Tiziana Deering in for Magnichia Bardi.

It was just a normal night for Thomas Vargas Jr.

He and his wife are watching TV at their home in Stockton, California,

when an ad came on.

The Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration

will give at least a hundred Stocktonians

an unconditional income of $500 per month for 18 months.

This is the nation's first city-led guaranteed income

initiative. No work restrictions, no requirements, just some extra monthly

income for you. The goal of this...

Tamas didn't think much about it.

Why would he?

It seemed to be too good to be true.

Now in 2019, Tamas had two kids, aged six and seven.

He worked part-time and he did extra side jobs to get by he and his

wife were living paycheck to paycheck and then one day the city called this money

program was real and he could participate if he wanted to.

Starting in February of 2019 he would get $500 a month for two years, no strings attached. So the first couple months I was really like iffy about it. I kept the checks and I didn't spend them because I didn't want to sit there and be like have a phone call one day and be like, oh, you know, the program fell through and you know, we're sorry, you know, we tried or anything like that. But luckily like I said, it never fell through, it actually extended it, and it gave me that

reassurance of, actually gave me reassurance in our government because I really didn't trust anything

the government said before.

It was always either you could do one thing and then if you do something else you get kicked off of it.

So this is the only program that really dedicated it to me to do what I needed to do with it.

...