universal basic income research paper

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Here's what a Sam Altman-backed basic income experiment found

By Megan Cerullo

Edited By Anne Marie Lee

Updated on: July 23, 2024 / 10:33 AM EDT / CBS News

A recent study on basic income, backed by OpenAI founder Sam Altman, shows that giving low-income people guaranteed paydays with no strings attached can lead to their working slightly less, affording them more leisure time. 

The study, which is one of the largest and most comprehensive of its kind, examined the impact of guaranteed income on recipients' health, spending, employment, ability to relocate and other facets of their lives.

Altman first announced his desire to fund the study in a 2016 blog post on startup accelerator Y Combinator's site.

Some of the questions he set out to answer about how people behave when they're given free cash included, "Do people sit around and play video games, or do they create new things? Are people happy and fulfilled?" according to the post. Altman, whose OpenAI is behind generative text tool ChatGPT, which threatens to take away some jobs, said in the blog post that he thinks technology's elimination of "traditional jobs"  could make universal basic income necessary in the future. 

How much cash did participants get?

For OpenResearch's Unconditional Cash Study , 3,000 participants in Illinois and Texas received $1,000 monthly for three years beginning in 2020. The cash transfers represented a 40% boost in recipients' incomes. The cash recipients were within 300% of the federal poverty level, with average incomes of less than $29,000. A control group of 2,000 participants received $50 a month for their contributions.

Basic income recipients spent more money, the study found, with their extra dollars going toward essentials like rent, transportation and food.

Researchers also studied the free money's effect on how much recipients worked, and in what types of jobs. They found that recipients of the cash transfers worked 1.3 to 1.4 hours less each week compared with the control group. Instead of working during those hours, recipients used them for leisure time. 

"We observed moderate decreases in labor supply," Eva Vivalt, assistant professor of economics at the University of Toronto and one of the study's principal investigators, told CBS MoneyWatch. "From an economist's point of view, it's a moderate effect." 

More autonomy, better health

Vivalt doesn't view the dip in hours spent working as a negative outcome of the experiment, either. On the contrary, according to Vivalt. "People are doing more stuff, and if the results say people value having more leisure time — that this is what increases their well-being — that's positive." 

In other words, the cash transfers gave recipients more autonomy over how they spent their time, according to Vivalt. 

"It gives people the choice to make their own decisions about what they want to do. In that sense, it necessarily improves their well-being," she said. 

Researchers expected that participants would ultimately earn higher wages by taking on better-paid work, but that scenario didn't pan out. "They thought that if you can search longer for work because you have more of a cushion, you can afford to wait for better jobs, or maybe you quit bad jobs," Vivalt said. "But we don't find any effects on the quality of employment whatsoever."

Uptick in hospitalizations

At a time when even Americans with insurance say they have trouble staying healthy because they struggle to afford care , the study results show that basic-income recipients actually increased their spending on health care services. 

Cash transfer recipients experienced a 26% increase in the number of hospitalizations in the last year, compared with the average control recipient. The average recipient also experienced a 10% increase in the probability of having visited an emergency department in the last year.

Researchers say they will continue to study outcomes of the experiment, as other cities across the U.S. conduct their own tests of the concept.

Megan Cerullo is a New York-based reporter for CBS MoneyWatch covering small business, workplace, health care, consumer spending and personal finance topics. She regularly appears on CBS News 24/7 to discuss her reporting.

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Universal Basic Income: A Review

8 Pages Posted: 4 Aug 2017

Usman W. Chohan

Centre for Aerospace & Security Studies (CASS); Critical Blockchain Research Initiative (CBRI); International Association of Hyperpolyglots (HYPIA); University of New South Wales (UNSW)

Date Written: August 4, 2017

Universal Basic Income is a long-standing umbrella concept that is attracting ever more attention in light of the prognostications of a dire future wherein economic inequality is greatly exacerbated by various socioeconomic and technological factors. This discussion paper provides a synthesis of the salient literature and thus provides a timely review.

Keywords: Basic Income, Universal Basic Income, Inequality, Labour

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Usman W. Chohan (Contact Author)

Centre for aerospace & security studies (cass) ( email ).

Islamabad Pakistan

Critical Blockchain Research Initiative (CBRI) ( email )

International association of hyperpolyglots (hypia) ( email ).

HYPIA www.polyglotassociation.org Montreal, Quebec Canada

University of New South Wales (UNSW) ( email )

Kensington High St Sydney, NSW 2052 Australia

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•   Universal Basic Income: What's in a Name?

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Universal Basic Income: What's in a Name?

With increasing calls for a Universal Basic Income and a rise in experiments, a variety of names have been given to or associated with the proposal, including Guaranteed Income, Freedom Dividend, and Unconditional Basic Income. This paper examines what names can be given to the proposal and pilots and whether a single name across programs is needed to develop the proposal into an implementable policy. The question, What’s in a name? generates a far from straightforward answer. A multi-disciplinary approach, though, reveals a variety of important parameters for consideration. Moreover, the variety of values called upon by experimenters to name pilots is an asset to the growing movement, since it attests to the richness of the deep commitments (e.g., equity, dignity, respect, trust and abundance) underpinning UBI.

While recognizing this richness, however, this paper cautions about the use of too many names to refer to UBI at the policy level, pointing out that doing so creates significant definitional ambiguities about key features of the policy (notably its universal, individual and unconditional features). Employing a single name to refer to the proposal could be critical for advancing the policy at the national and international level.

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The Employment Effects of a Guaranteed Income: Experimental Evidence from Two U.S. States

We study the causal impacts of income on a rich array of employment outcomes, leveraging an experiment in which 1,000 low-income individuals were randomized into receiving $1,000 per month unconditionally for three years, with a control group of 2,000 participants receiving $50/month. We gather detailed survey data, administrative records, and data from a custom mobile phone app. The transfer caused total individual income to fall by about $1,500/year relative to the control group, excluding the transfers. The program resulted in a 2.0 percentage point decrease in labor market participation for participants and a 1.3-1.4 hour per week reduction in labor hours, with participants’ partners reducing their hours worked by a comparable amount. The transfer generated the largest increases in time spent on leisure, as well as smaller increases in time spent in other activities such as transportation and finances. Despite asking detailed questions about amenities, we find no impact on quality of employment, and our confidence intervals can rule out even small improvements. We observe no significant effects on investments in human capital, though younger participants may pursue more formal education. Overall, our results suggest a moderate labor supply effect that does not appear offset by other productive activities.

We thank the non-profit organizations that implemented the program we study. We are indebted to Patrick Krause for extensive support in running the research project. We also thank Leo Dai, Ethan Sansom, Jake Cosgrove, Kevin Didi, Taryn Eadie, Malek Hassouneh, Amy Huang, Joshua Lin, Anthony McCanny, Oliver Scott Pankratz, Sophia Scaglioni, Derek Thiele, Angela Wang-Lin, Isaac Ahuvia, Francisco Brady, Jill Adona, Oscar Alonso, Jack Bunge, Rashad Dixon, Marc-Andrea Fiorina and Ricardo Robles for excellent research assistance. Alex Nawar, Sam Manning, Elizabeth Proehl, Tess Cotter, Karina Dotson, and Aristia Kinis provided invaluable support through their work at OpenResearch. We thank Carmelo Barbaro, Janelle Blackwood, Katie Buitrago, Melinda Croes, Crystal Godina, Kelly Hallberg, Kirsten Jacobson, Timi Koyejo, Misuzu Schexnider, and many others at the Inclusive Economy Lab at the University of Chicago for their pivotal role in supporting the project. This paper gratefully acknowledges funding from the NSF (#2149344) and private donors. This study received ethics approval from Advarra and the University of Toronto’s Institutional Review Boards. The study was pre-registered on the American Economic Association RCT Registry (AEARCTR-0006750). The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

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