Michael Tubbs (4:43)

It was being in government, particularly in Stockton. So I ran for city council in Stockton. I just graduated from Stanford, had spent a summer at Google, so was used to like iteration and move fast and break things and put it back together and problem solving. And given the immense need in the city of Stockton, from the high poverty rates to we had just cleared bankruptcy, staff capacity issues, et cetera, I just expected there would be an opportunity to make government work because it had to work, because we had to do more than the government of Beverly Hills, for example, or the government of Palo Alto. Like, we just couldn't do the regular government stuff. So being from Stockton, there was just such immense need and folks were looking for leadership and government had to deliver services. Government had to work. And the fact that it wasn't working, we had just declared bankruptcy. We had the highest per capita murder rate in the country. We had the lowest staff police force in the country, had very little staff capacity to do even the basics. Just created a perfect storm, or an imperfect storm, if you will, of opportunity and need to figure out, okay, how do we make this thing work to deliver for the folks who are counting on us?

Amanda Renteria (5:51)

And what was it, you know, Listen, you're young, right? You're coming out. You're like, what was it that sort of sparked you to say, I'm going to now do it. I see it, and I'm now going to run. I'm going to put my hat in the ring and I'm going to do this. And I think I can win. Like that. That moment when you're like, no, this is real. Now I'm going to put myself on the line.

Michael Tubbs (6:13)

It was literally Halloween 2010. I was interning in the White House. I had spent my high school, last years of high school as the Youth Advisory Commission chair. So I was familiar with local government. Now I was at intergovernmental affairs for the White House. And then my cousin in Stockton ended up being a victim of a homicide. And it was really that juxtaposition between being at the seat of power, like, literally at the White House, and then feeling very powerless. It wasn't enough to protect my family. That made me think about, well, maybe sort of my purpose isn't just to be successful for me, maybe it's not just about me getting all the accolades and making a lot of money, but maybe I should probably go back to Stockton and see if this was the best government could do. And then the next year, the city declared bankruptcy. I remember going home for Christmas, and the mayor at the time had said she had a anti crime strategy that she was going to unveil at the end of the year. It was the end of the year. A reporter just asked her, like, hey, any updating anti crime strategy? Because there was so much stuff going on, she had no idea what the reporter was referring to. Yeah, it was like this big announcement that was made like eight months ago, like this strategy was coming. So that really, I took that very personal. And I realized that maybe part of the issue is that if the job of government leaders are to set priorities, their priorities are set by their proximity and the fact that the murders and the homicides weren't proximate. Like, those weren't the people at the country club. Those weren't the people at the state of the City. Those weren't the people even showed up to council meetings. I said, well, look, I could just complain about it or I could run, but I really ran, Amanda. Not even with this intent that, like, I had to win. It was more of, like, I have to run. Like, for me, it felt like there was something in the journey of running that was going to be important.

Amanda Renteria (7:59)

I'm curious now. You're still young, but, like, as you think about that next generation and, like, how they are living in their world, right? AI enabled, you do AI work. And just in general, what. Looking back on yourself and saying, what was it that you trusted? What was it that you. You knew? Or is it that you just don't think about it and you just, like, follow it? Like, I'm curious what kind of advice you give.

Michael Tubbs (8:27)

Yeah, well, my advice is a. For me, it's having just like, strong values and moral foundation that helps kind of shape the decisions I make and shape sort of like the world I want to live in. Number two, I just remember being younger and reading all these biographies of people who I literally looked up to and admired. And what did it for me was they were all a little bit crazy at the time. Like, every time they did, like, they were all a little bit crazy. And then number two, looking back, everything seemed inevitable. But in the moment, every choice the opposite seemed like would be more true. And that's always stuck with me. The fact that history is made on the margins and the fact that, like Nelson Mandela said, it always looks impossible until it's done. So I tell people that all the time that if you're actually gonna change something and make a dent, it won't look likely, it will look hard, it will look like it's not going to happen. In fact, that's, for me, that's the indicator. Okay, I should do this thing even if it doesn't work out because there's a lesson there or there's iteration there, or it gets you closer to whatever that next thing is. So that's why I tell folks to, like, embrace the chaos, embrace the uncertainty and embrace the journey, because you actually have no control over the destination.

Amanda Renteria (9:50)

Yeah. And what's weird is I think when people think about government, they think it's this thing that's bureaucratic and slow and big and impossible. Right. In fact, there are these pockets, these moments, these times where not just the moment opens up where it's a little chaotic and you gotta figure out your way, but people themselves can come in and open it up. And I think that's the part that I, When I'm also talking to young people, I'm like, no, get into government. Figure it out. Like, you can actually kind of disrupt things from the inside. And when you do that, you actually then have the resources of government to shape and move, and that's super powerful. And as we think about this new generation, what are they bringing? Because I know you work with a lot of young folks. What are they bringing? To the discussion today.

Michael Tubbs (10:41)

Yeah, I think they bring like a fluency with the tools and sort of the tools are things that are already integrated into their everyday life. When I think of myself, dating myself, like, I just created a TikTok a couple months ago and like the people who are helping me understand how to use it, why it's different than Instagram, how, how things go viral, et cetera, are like 23, 24, 25 year olds and they just get it. They're not, they didn't go to school for TikTok, they didn't go to like these trainings. They're just like, they're TikTok fluent, they're AI fluent. They just have an understanding of technology and they, and don't have a fear of it. And I also think that they just bring a. The beauty of a beginner's mindset. They haven't been so jaded with what hasn't worked. They haven't been so jaded with the time we did the ERP transition 20 years ago and it was disastrous. What are you talking about? It's just like, let's just do it and if we don't get it right this time, let's get it right the next time. I just love that beginner's mindset and that levity.

Amanda Renteria (11:38)

Yeah. And so one of the things that I have appreciated and you've always been on the front lines of communicating your ideas and your thoughts. These folks who are young are doing it all the time in real time as the world is changing around them in different forms, like you mentioned in TikTok. Right. In short form and long form in just real time talk.

Michael Tubbs (11:57)

And they're also like so intuitive. Right. They don't wait for good or bad, they don't wait for talking points, they don't wait, they don't wait for the polls. They're really very comfortable pulling out their phone and saying, hey, this just happened. This is what I feel. And I think that level of authenticity is what folks are craving. And I think what we have to do is find a way to balance the authenticity of making sure things are like factually accurate. But as we know, emotions drive decision making, not facts. So the fact that these folks have figured out how to be emotional, how to be honest, how to be off the cuff, how to just say what they think is, is really powerful.

Amanda Renteria (12:34)

Yeah. And so there's the, the part where you can explore and you can test. Now I'm interested in like the seriousness of the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration project that you did right where you gave 125 residents $500 a month. Big first question there is, how did you actually fund that? Right. Because, you know, you could talk about it, we could do a tick tock about it, but at the end of the day, you got to get it funded, and it has to be funded in order for it to work. And so let's start there.

Michael Tubbs (13:05)

Yeah, well, what's fascinating is that it's very serendipitous. We, me and my team were talking about. It'd be cool to do something like that one day. But given the fiscal realities of Stockton, I knew we had money to fund it. But in the next week, I was in San Francisco at a tech for government conversation, and my good friend Natalie Foster was there, and she asked me what I was up to. And I said, well, I'm in Stockton. Where are you up to? And she said, well, we're looking for cities to pilot a guaranteed income in. Are you familiar with the concept? I embellished a little bit. I said, I have a task force I looking at sort of guaranteed income, and right now we're trying to find a funding source. And she said, oh, my gosh. Well, we're looking to fund the city. So we were lucky enough and we spent like six months in deep conversation, meetings, et cetera, but we were lucky enough to get a million dollars from the economic security project to fund the demonstration. Then we got another half a million dollars or another million dollars from a philanthropist named Carol Tolan to extend the program from 18 months to 24 months during COVID And then we got a bunch of money from foundations to pay for the evaluation and research. Another like 1.5, up to $2 million. And what's fascinating to me is that we got so much pushback and backlash, but since then, we have like 90 or 80 governments piloting some form of guaranteed income in this country, and 90% of them are government funded. Almost $300 million of public dollars. But to the point of your question, to get off the ground, to start to test, we had to use philanthropy. And I would tell people, because we got some critiques about that, and I said, look, if we prove this is a great idea, it should be publicly funded, But I'm comfortable with testing ideas with philanthropy so we could see what works, and then we could use public dollars to scale it, which is actually what's kind of happening. So I'm really proud of that.

Amanda Renteria (14:55)

Yeah, I think that's what is pretty amazing about this country, as I've looked at, you know, code for America's model, but just around the world. One of the incredible things about the United States is that you do have this social sector and that has, if done right, can be your risk capital for government. So you can show what's possible. I know at Code for America, we talk a lot about showing what's possible through philanthropy in the way governments deliver services. And sometimes it really works. And sometimes you test something out and you're like, this is a good product, but not for government. And when you think about how to make institutions better, what a remarkable muscle we have in this country that you can use philanthropy. And philanthropy's excited to share that talent or those ideas that they have. And they recognize that government is scale. But how do you get it to move in ways and really shape in ways that can make it not just kind of better, but really innovative? And so this is one of those big examples of doing that. So what did you learn out of. Out of this project?

Michael Tubbs (16:01)

And before that, let me go back to what you said, because I want to underline and double click. But what's interesting in our experience, it's

Amanda Renteria (16:07)

so new agey of you.

Michael Tubbs (16:10)

But what was interesting in our experience in Stockton was that philanthropy wanted to pay for the research and the data, but they didn't want to pay for the cash. At the time, they were acting like government that we won't pay for the cash transfer, so we gotta go to individuals. So one of my critiques of philanthropy has been like, look, you guys, you guys are the risk capital. You guys are the innovation capital. You are. The folks are able to let us try it. If you're acting like government, we're stuck. Yeah, if you're scared to fund the stuff, like, we're really in trouble. But now that they've come around. But literally no foundation would fund the cash payments for the Stockton Economic Empowerment Administration. They were. Everyone wanted to fund the research.

Amanda Renteria (16:50)

And in fact, they funded evaluation.

Michael Tubbs (16:52)

In fact, at one point, we have more money for evaluation than for their payments to people. This is. So this is part of the issue. Anyway, what did we learn? We learned, number one, people could go to guaranteedincomeworks.com because now we just released results from 25 pilots. But what we've learned in the Stockton pilot was a, the money wasn't enough to stop people from working, which was so much of the trope and so much the narrative, like, you can't give people money. They're not going to work. But in fact, we found the opposite, that the folks who received the guaranteed Income were able to work more. They transitioned from part time to, to full time work because they could afford to take time off to apply for full time jobs. They could afford to get their car fixed to go to work, they could afford childcare, they could afford getting their uniform dry clean. They could actually afford the cost associated with going to work. The second thing we found was that the guaranteed income was helpful in terms of stress levels and cortisol levels and anxiety levels. On the qualitative side, folks kept saying they felt like they can breathe. So much so that LA county, which now has the largest guaranteed income program in the country, led by Supervisor Holly Mitchell, named their program LA County Breathe. Because they read the report in Stockton and was like oh my gosh, people said they could breathe, that's, that's such a big deal. And that it had comparable results to clinical trials of Prozac in terms of impacts on depression and anxiety. And the third thing we found is that smooth out income volatility. It's funny because one out of two Americans can afford $1 500 emergency. So it's like a fringe group of people. It's like majority of the country. But for folks who aren't in that majority they were shocked to realize that folks incomes are so volatile month to month and that maybe one month food is the issue, but maybe the next month lights are the issue and the next month housing's the issue, then life happens and then something else, a kid gets sick. And that there's no government official, there's no government program and there's no government leader that's smart enough to think of all the ways every single person in their community are going to need money. And cash allows for flexibility, which is something I didn't appreciate. And that cash isn't necessarily especially small amount like $500 can't be a replacement for the existing safety net. It's really about being mindful about the ways in which people use cash. And then we also learned that. Well my biggest learning besides the data was that so much of our government, so much of our policy isn't based off rigorous data, isn't based off rigorous analysis, isn't based off best practice. It's based off narrative and fables. It's based off vibes, it's based off like stories people misunderstood from Bible study and when they were kids. It's like really not rooted in anything real. And that gave me so much courage because starting off it was very scary because literally everybody was like no. Democrats and Republicans are, you can't do that, no, it's not gonna work. No, it's not gonna work. And then after we like cracked and pushed, I was like, oh, the status quo is not really built on anything sturdy. Like if you push and crack and question a little bit, it can move. And it's like, oh yeah. And now it's like no brainer. Now we're figuring out how much money to give to people and to who and how come it doesn't help with kids brain development. Like now the pendulum has swung so much where it's not even a radical idea, when just like eight years ago it was a ridiculous notion to most people.

Amanda Renteria (20:12)

So one of my questions that I've been really thinking about when it comes to universal basic income is how important it is. Is it or was it at the time when you did this that the money was an infusion at a moment versus safety net, right. Which is supposed to be there to hold you up.

Michael Tubbs (20:31)

To be honest, we can't even grapple with those second order questions because like the first question was like, can we just give people money? Whether it's one time, whether it's every month, whether it's week. Like the big question we were trying to answer is like, what can we just give people money? Like, so I was agnostic as to what it was going to be used for because I was curious myself. Like, I mean, we try everything but let's try like trusting people with money and see what happens. But then since then, the discussion has evolve into sort of, is it a safety net? Is it a one time stimulus? Is it, Is it, what is your amount of time? Should it just be a monthly thing? I'm actually shocked that we got to that we're able to ask that question now because there was so much vitriol towards even giving money. So I even think the fact that that question's posed is like a real victory. Like, wow, folks, like we've established, okay, giving money's not bad.

Amanda Renteria (21:26)

Yeah. Heck yeah. And it is really, you know, as we're thinking about it and you know, for folks who are trying new ideas in government, I think what you're posing here is it's not clear sometimes what the long run is going to be, right? You see a problem, you fix it. And part of the creativity in government and why I'm so excited to talk to government leaders who try new things is because where they thought it was going to start doesn't necessarily end up what ends up happening with it. Right? Universal basic income might actually be part of the new safety net. You know, after all these changes are happening with policy right now, today, and they've evolved and. Right. It's a real discussion about how do you do this? Not only, not only the benefit itself, but the delivery of the benefit. Right. Should it be at a city level versus a state level versus a federal government? I mean, all those questions, we are living at a time when those are all up in the air. And to have these examples of people doing government fixes in the moment really is gonna be the foundation for what does this look like in the future. But you couldn't have anticipated that at the time. Right. And one of the things you talk about is government being designed to say no rather than yes. And what does government that says yes look like in your mind?

Michael Tubbs (22:46)

Yeah, I think a government that says yes is deeply committed not to being right, but to getting it right. And I tell people all the time, I don't think people expect perfection, but they do expect progress. And I get it. As a government, as a former mayor, former city council member, I understand, like, you don't want to innovate on water delivery without rigorous testing because people drink that. Like, you know, there's some things that you need to be very, like, clear about, but there's some things you can. Like what does policing look like in the 21st century? What does sort of social workers and mental health professionals as part of our safety strategy, what does that look like? That's something that we should be rigorously trying because we know that policing in and of itself does not create the safety people deserve. Or what does simple things like constituent services look like? Like, how. Why is it so difficult for a family to know all the programs the city offers for their 5 year old? Or the work you guys have been doing? I'm such a big fan of that. I've been talking about all the time about just like, how do you just deliver the benefits we've already paid for? Like snap while we still have it. I'm obsessed with this idea of like a common app for like, why do I have to fill out five different forms to the same government? For, like, just find a way to cross list it and cross check. And the issue is not even tech. It's all legal and man made and like made up. And it's like, we can actually solve those things. I think if we do that, you'll have people who will see government as a force of good. Government can actually help. Government's part of like making things better versus just being in the way or sucking up all my time. And not being efficient.

Amanda Renteria (24:24)

Yeah, I mean, that, that's, that's it. There's no reason why government can't do that. The vision is there. And then when you get on the back end, you realize, okay, we gotta. We gotta mix this department with that department. They're dealing with legacy systems. And so I suspect when you became mayor, one of the things you saw immediately was the back end systems and the tech system. So it's not just that you're dealing with the politics of people like pushing you on a new idea, but then you get there and you're like, wait a second. This place, like, I understand why it can't move fast. Like, well, what did you do with that?

Michael Tubbs (24:58)

I remember the big joke when I became mayor was that the only thing I was older than was our legacy system, but only by a year. So we were using technology from 1990, in 2015, 16 in Stockton. We had our payroll department wasn't a department. It was like a woman with like. It wasn't a spreadsheet. Some thing I've never seen before in my life. It was like a black screen with freaking, like green.

Amanda Renteria (25:27)

Yeah.

Michael Tubbs (25:28)

I was like, wait, this is how we're getting paid? This is crazy. Like, I need my paycheck. So it was like, stuff like that. And it was also. But like our police chief, Erik Jones, he was very innovative, so he figured out some workarounds. Like, his stuff was state of the art, but the rest of the city was moving so slow. And then like, this is where I learned the delta between any change and like the necessary change isn't that big. So if you're going to change it, just change it. Because then we did like, our C manager at the time wanted to do a transition to like a 2010, 2012 legacy system. And it took like so much work and so much breaking and re. Breaking and figuring out how to work. But then by the time it was done, that system was now outdated. Yeah, I was like, we should just went for the. We should just went for the ultimate because now we have to do the same thing again. And it was just such a primer that those fundamentals matter, that the messiness matters, that the minutia matters, that the work of the infrastructure, the bones, it matters. And another example I remember is we were talking about sort of guaranteed income statewide and how do we do that? And part of the issue was like, okay, how, like, how do we disperse the money? And luckily, so we had to do like some policy stuff or some backdoor stuff with the franchise tax board. To get them able to, like, deliver money. And it was like, wow. So part of my vision for government is like to do the sexy stuff. We have to do the unsexy stuff first. So we have to make sure our systems that we're ready for innovation. We're ready. We have the guardrails and the track and the road. Because I think what people get frustrated by is they want to plant the tree, but there's no dirt, there's just concrete. So part of the work is, I think is. And that's the work code for America does so well, which is why you all have been so effective, is understanding, like, no, look, we understand technology exists, but like, it has to interact with or the current system has to be ready for the change.

Amanda Renteria (27:29)

Yeah. And I mean, that's what we spend so much time really learning, you know, so in the tech sector that's moving so fast. Right. There's this philosophy that you can have a product and it's perfect and it's amazing. And it can be just like you order, you know, doordash or something on Amazon and you're like, right. But in government, you have to link to systems that are really old or you have to have the resources to be able to redo those systems. And if you're going to redo those systems, you also have to have the tech talent to figure out how to do it and how to do it in a way that is right for government.

Michael Tubbs (28:02)

Yeah.

Amanda Renteria (28:03)

And that's like, I don't know how many talks I've been on with tech folks were like, why is government so slow? We have such a great product. You know, what's wrong with them? And I have really appreciated seeing the rise of young folks and tech people get into government to go, oh, I get it. I see where to your question, which is, I got a link into an old system or where is the path for a brand new system? Because you might as well go there because you're gonna have to do it again. To your point, when you make a little change, it's as big as making a big change because nothing, you know, it's just a bureaucracy.

Michael Tubbs (28:37)

It's the same amount of effort. It's the same effort.

Amanda Renteria (28:40)

Yeah. So you have seen government now at the local level, and you also saw it at the state level. Your takeaways from that transition.

Michael Tubbs (28:50)

Yeah. California is so huge. It's a nation state. It's a state 4th or 5th largest economy in the world for a reason. And that sort of. We spend so much time focused on, like the Governor and lieutenant governor and the legislature, but not nearly enough time focused on the bureaucracy, the people and the systems and the folks who will be there regardless of who the governor is and who's not and sort of how they need to be a part of the change and part of the push and part of like, let's make this better. And I think like I remember spending a lot of time with some folks at the tech level of our state government figuring out my, like the common. I was very serious about this common app thing. So I was like, what, what, what, what's the issue? And we did like some little like, like a little plug in I think with you all on, on SNAP benefits to tell people what they qualified for.

Amanda Renteria (29:42)

Yep.

Michael Tubbs (29:43)

And I was like, yeah. And I was like, that's great work and it's an improvement. But that took a lot. So why not just make it so like we just auto approved. Like I said, why can't we just auto approve people? Just help me understand, like help me understand why. And it wasn't anything, in my opinion insurmountable. It was literally just legal. But not like legal like the law, like legals. It was just about people could opt in for the privacy. Like I'm sure folks will be less upset if you use the data that already gave to you to match it with this other data set for the same person that gave. I realized that so much leadership is needed to get folks to just think differently or to think about, okay, how do we. Within the frameworks of data privacy and security and et cetera, how do you make it work? Because again, it makes no sense to anyone that if I'm sending you information, why can't you share that information with the same organization in the cause? I don't know. I'm sending it to hss. I know I'm sending it to the state.

Amanda Renteria (30:39)

Right.

Michael Tubbs (30:39)

I don't know why I have to go through all these loops. And yeah, so I'm still like fascinated by that. So that's a problem I will continue to work on.

Amanda Renteria (30:47)

Yeah, it is interesting. Like just the framing of it, right Back in the day, you go to all the different buildings and this remote young environment, they're like, what do you mean? Why can't I just. I see one government, you know, like, why can't. And we can, right? It's just gonna take some time and

Michael Tubbs (31:03)

it takes some time and like real focus. Like, no, we have to figure it out.

Amanda Renteria (31:06)

Intentional focus with leaders like you, people who are thinking about innovative ideas and bringing it together. And as I say to folks, I know government looks scary right now, but I also believe it's being rewritten right now for what the future is gonna look like. And so while I've always said it's a good time to be in government, come take a look, come be in it, come be part of writing that. We literally are seeing sort of history in the making, not only in our political sphere, but undoubtedly that leads to what happens on implementation and to be in states. Right. Even though it's scary and there's a lot moving at this moment, it's the people who are in there trying these innovative ideas, saying, okay, we gotta do it now differently. That kind of mindset I appreciate, and so I appreciate getting a chance to talk to you. And so my last question is, if you had a magic wand to change one thing about how government works, not policy, but how it actually functions and serves people, what would you fix first?

Michael Tubbs (32:08)

Well, that's actually the problem I'm working on. I, I realize that so much of city staff time is spent writing and looking up documents and going back two years and forget what the general plan says I relates to the parks and plan to apply for this grant and to write the staff report. So I'm working on for sort of like AI tools that will let city government workers do jobs. That's not like going through bad data and records to try to create something, but allow the AI to be the institutional memory. And with like a really, a really, really fine tuned training LLM that can help draft and write and save staff like incredible amounts of time. So they're actually out in community doing community work because I just think that's like a little thing but can have a huge impact. And with all these government employees that retiring anyway, so much institutional memory is leaving and no one in the city knows how all the documents talk to each other, but there's like technology that can.

Amanda Renteria (33:02)

Yep.

Michael Tubbs (33:02)

So I'm like, I'm so obsessed with the idea. It's called civic AI. We're piloting with a couple cities now, but that's like the problem I want to help solve in the next couple years.

Amanda Renteria (33:11)

Well, I hear you because we're doing that kind of thing at the state level and I think people would be surprised to hear that. They're like, we worked in one state where there were boxes and literally they had 10 full time staff, half of them printing and putting the paper in boxes, half of them taking those papers out and scanning them so that there's a digital copy. I mean we can do so much better than that.

Michael Tubbs (33:35)

And also no one reading them. No one's reading them. No one knows. No one knows what these documents say.

Amanda Renteria (33:40)

You don't have time to get to them. So I am. It's wonderful to be in partnership with you always. No doubt us Central Valley kids are trying to figure this thing out and I'm always lucky to have you as a partner in this space. So thanks so much for joining us and look forward to the next time we cross paths.

Michael Tubbs (33:55)

Yes, thanks so much for having me.

Amanda Renteria (34:07)

After talking to Michael Tubbs, what really struck me is how important it is to meet people where they are. It's important to listen to the communities we serve and see what they actually need. Like maybe that one time cash payment is just the thing to get someone back on their feet. I also liked how Tubbs talked about the next generation. His quote, they don't wait for the talking points. They don't wait for the polls really landed with me. It's exciting to hear how young people have a lot of fresh ideas about how to solve our biggest problems in this country. I also liked hearing Tubbs talk about unsexy systems. A government that just works means we've got to get the basics right. How does this work and how do we fund it, and how's it going to really reach people? That's all for today on the Government Fix. Thanks for listening. This podcast is brought to you by Code for America, the country's leading civic tech nonprofit. For over 15 years. We believe that government can work for the people, by the people, in the new digital age. We work with government at all levels across the country to make the delivery of public service better with technology. We partner with community organizations and governments to build digital tools, change policy, and improve programs. Our goal? A resilient government that works well for everyone. Learn more at codeforamerica.org. Sam.