Originally published by The 19th.
For eight years, researchers have been quietly putting together the largest, most comprehensive study on programs that give people a monthly stream of cash — no strings attached. Over time, does that income transform people’s lives?
The data is now in.
Put together by OpenResearch, the nonprofit lab founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, the study followed 3,000 participants from 2020 to 2023, creating a sweeping portrait of the effects of guaranteed income programs. More than 150 such programs have been running since 2018, serving 50,000-plus recipients — often low-income women, parents and people of color.
The researchers wanted to understand the role cash transfers play in improving people’s livelihoods. “Asking if cash is good is kind of like saying, ‘Is food good?’” said research director and principal investigator Elizabeth Rhodes. “But what effect does it have in different places?”
The study split the participants into two groups: 1,000 people received $1,000 a month for three years and the rest received $50 a month to serve as a control group. (Researchers decided to pay the second group a nominal amount to help them stay engaged with the project.)
The groups, all made up of people ages 21 to 40, were drawn from rural, suburban and urban counties in Illinois and Texas with average annual household incomes of about $30,000, creating a representative sample of young low-income Americans. Each group was surveyed monthly and annually, and 155 people also underwent in-depth interviews once or twice a year. On average, 97 percent of participants completed the surveys.
(The OpenResearch lab is run independently from Altman and OpenAI, but the two have contributed more than $24 million to fund the project.)
The findings were published in the National Bureau of Economic Research this week.
Right away, the data clearly showed that cash helped people spend more on their basic needs. Those who received $1,000 monthly spent $67 more per month than the lower-paid group on food, $52 more on rent and $50 more on transportation. They also spent about 26 percent more financially supporting others, typically family members or children, suggesting that the beneficiaries of guaranteed income programs extend beyond the actual participants.
Some of the volunteers told the researchers that the money allowed them to stop living paycheck to paycheck and start imagining what they could do if they had more financial breathing room. Karina Dotson, OpenResearch’s research and insights manager, often heard participants talk about the cash giving them a “sense of self.” She said it “gave them head space to dream, to believe, to........