How guaranteed income experiment fared in Tacoma

TACOMA, Pierce County — When the pandemic hit in 2020, Debbie Wilkerson decided to retire early from her job at Jack-in-the-Box. But it wasn’t really by choice, said the 64-year-old Tacoma resident. With schools shut down, she needed to home-school her 13-year-old grandson, James Carcione, who is on the autism spectrum, while her son continued to go to work. Already struggling under a crush of debt — a hodgepodge of overdue bills, collection calls, court fines — the Wilkerson famil