(HUDSON, N.Y.) – Twenty-five residents of Hudson will be selected to receive $500 per month for five years as part of HudsonUP, a new universal basic income (UBI) pilot program founded by The Spark of Hudson and the Humanity Forward Foundation. The program is being designed to benefit the community of Hudson and to demonstrate the power of basic income for all.

Participants will be randomly selected after completing an application with a deadline of September 20, 2020, at 11:59pm. Recipients of the UBI will be notified of their selection on September 26.

Participants must be residents of Hudson, N.Y., must be 18 years or older, and must earn less than $35,153 a year (the median annual income in Hudson). They may be single, married, with children or without.

Selection will be overseen by a team of independent researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Tennessee and will be conducted by way of a random lottery weighted by equity factors. There will be no limits placed on how eventual participants are able to spend the money.

HudsonUP is a collaborative project made possible by The Spark of Hudson, founded by Susan Danziger and Albert Wenger, and the Humanity Forward Foundation, founded by former presidential candidate Andrew Yang. The HudsonUP program, including recipient selection process and implementation, has been designed in close partnership with individuals and organizations within the Hudson community, and has the support of Hudson Mayor Kamal Johnson.

The Spark of Hudson is a learning and training center set to launch in Hudson, dedicated to reinventing education. In addition to The Spark of Hudson and HudsonUP, Wenger and Danziger have launched and funded a variety of other projects to better the greater Hudson community and beyond.

The Humanity Forward Foundation is a new 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, founded by Andrew Yang, dedicated to promoting research and education around universal basic income and to providing charitable cash assistance to Americans in need.