Guaranteed Income In The Wild: Summarizing Evidence From Pilot Studies and Implications for Policy

Years of advocacy have led to the launch of over one hundred guaranteed income pilots across the US in the past six years. Broadly, advocates hoped these programs would demonstrate the effectiveness of cash in fighting poverty and catalyze momentum for larger scale policy. Now, as many wind down, some of the largest pilot research projects – including one evaluated by Jain Family Institute researchers – are reporting long-awaited results. 

Analysts and policymakers with an interest in unconditional cash have struggled to reconcile competing, often contradictory claims about the results of these recent findings. One headline declares that “study finds no-strings cash leaves the poor worse off” while another asserts, “results further prove guaranteed income’s critical role in supporting families.” A third suggests that “the report card on guaranteed income is still incomplete.” Remarkably, all three headlines refer to the same underlying study. Supporters and detractors have been quick to interpret this round of results in their favor, whether as proof that guaranteed income is an urgently needed antipoverty tool at the national level or a waste of resources with perverse incentives.

How do we make sense of this confusing mass of competing claims? And what interpretations can we safely draw about what “works” when it comes to unconditional cash? This report aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the results from guaranteed income pilot programs and a new framework for understanding their implications for larger-scale policy. We analyze a subset of pilots that meet the highest standards for program evaluation—studies designed to best protect against erroneously finding that guaranteed income has a more positive or negative impact than reality. While we write from an institutional position supportive of guaranteed income based on pre-existing evidence, we try to give fair hearing to the claims of critics and scrutinize the claims of advocates.