Huge & comprehensive study on the impacts of cash transfers (UBI) in the US finds almost no impact on everything tested - Work, Education, Health 😔.

They gave 1,000 low income people in IL and TX $1,000/mo for 3 years, & gave a control group $50/mo… They studied everything - did blood draws, had a custom mobile app to study time usage, had credit reports/bank balances.

The $12,000/yr was substantial - a 40% increase in household income, and not taxable.

What happened?

Work:

-People worked a little less (2% decrease in labor market participation, labor hour reduction of 1.3-1.4 hrs/wk), decreasing their non-transfer incomes. Every $1 transferred reduced household income by $0.20. -They spend that time on leisure -No impact on starting or helping to start a business :( though people stated on the survey that they would be more likely to start a business -so… the negative effect on labor supply was not offset by other productive activities and people also did not get better jobs

Education:

-people in their 20s getting the transfer had a 2% increase in enrolling in post-secondary education

Health:

-The cash generated major benefits to stress and mental health in the 1st year but by the 2nd year there was no improvement noticed over base -People used more medical care ($20/mo) - spending more on hospitalizations, ER, dentists. -People also spent more on alcohol and painkillers -Overall there was no effect on physical health (measured via survey, blood tests, health records) -No impact on exercise or sleep -There were major benefits to food insecurity, but only in the 1st year. By year 2, participants were as food-insecure as before the transfers. Paper->https://public.websites.umich.edu/~mille/ORUS_Health.pdf