HOW ABOUT MOVING WORKERS OUT OF INNER CITIES:

If you're a young person looking for work in Bakersfield, California, some of your best bets are likely to be in the warehouse and retail jobs on the fringes of town. But getting there can be a challenge if you don't have a car.

That helps explain why some 18,500 people between the ages 16 and 24 in this Central Valley city of 400,000 were neither in school nor working in 2019. Bakersfield is saddled with one of the highest rates of youth disconnection in the U.S., which the pandemic has likely made even worse.

An experimental program aims to close some of those gaps, as well as others around the country. Later this month, 100 vulnerable young Bakersfield residents will be selected to participate in a year-long study about how free access to public transit, e-scooters and e-bikes affects their lives.  

It's one of several pilots in U.S. cities testing the concept of " universal basic mobility." In Oakland, up to 500 residents will receive prepaid $300 debit cards for transit and shared mobility services later this month. Pittsburgh plans to launch a year-long study with a 50-person cohort next spring. Los Angeles is preparing a similar grant-funded program focused in south L.A. 

The goal of the experiments is to understand how having a minimum guaranteed level of transportation could change outcomes for people who have previously gone without it.

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