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• The top researcher for a major study on guaranteed basic income says the findings are "nuanced."
• The study, backed by Sam Altman, gave $1,000 a month to 1,000 low-income participants.
• Elizabeth Rhodes says while the study showed benefits, it's not a quick fix for economic insecurity.

The lead researcher for Sam Altman's basic-income study says guaranteed no-strings payments are not a silver bullet for issues facing lower-income Americans.

Elizabeth Rhodes, the research director for the Basic Income Project at Open Research, told Business Insider that while basic-income payments are "beneficial in many ways," the programs also have "clear limitations."

Universal basic income, or UBI, typically refers to making recurring cash payments to all adults in a population, regardless of their wealth or employment status, and with no restrictions on how they spend the money.

Rhodes headed up one of the largest studies in the space, which focused specifically on those on low incomes rather than making universal payments to adults across all economic demographics.

The three-year experiment, backed by OpenAI boss Altman, provided 1,000 low-income participants with $1,000 a month without any stipulations for how they could spend it. The study aimed to explore how unconditional cash payments influence various aspects of recipients' lives.

The initial findings, released in July, found that recipients put the bulk of their extra spending toward basic needs such as rent, transportation, and food. They also worked less on average but remained engaged in the workforce and were more deliberate in their job searches compared with a control group.

But Rhodes says the research reinforced how difficult it is to solve complex issues such as poverty or economic insecurity, and that there is "a lot more work to do."

The Altman-backed study is still reporting results. New findings released in December showed recipients valued work more after receiving the recurring monthly payments — a result that may challenge one of the main arguments against basic income payments. Participants also reported significant reductions in stress, mental distress, and food insecurity during the first year, though those effects faded by the second and third years of the program.

"Poverty and economic insecurity are incredibly difficult problems to solve," Rhodes said. "The findings that we've had thus far are quite nuanced."

She added: "There's not a clear through line in terms of, this helps everyone, or this does that. It reinforced to me the idea that these are really difficult problems that, maybe, there isn't a singular solution."

UBI and Silcion Valley

Universal basic income has garnered significant support within Silicon Valley.

The programs have long been a passion project for high-profile tech leaders, including Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Tesla chief Elon Musk. Some argue advancements in AI, which could pose a threat to some worker's job security, have made the conversion more urgent.

Like many of his tech contemporaries, Altman has long supported UBI and even suggested an idea that involves sharing compute of a future iteration of an OpenAI GPT model, something he referred to as "universal basic compute."

Rhodes first applied for the lead researcher job in 2016 after seeing a blog post from Altman, then the president of Y Combinator, in which he announced his plan to support a study of universal basic income. At the time, she was just finishing up her Ph.D. and had never heard of Altman or Y Combinator.

"I started working on this with Sam in 2016 and at that time, so I was finishing up graduate school in social work and political science, and very outside the California Bay Area community," she said. "There was not much going on in this space, in the US. Basic income or cash transfers were still somewhat of a fringe idea."

The global interest in the study's results was somewhat surprising, Rhodes said, as the team never saw the experiment as a policy suggestion.

"It was never designed to be a policy referendum on UBI or any specific policy. It was an opportunity to really ask the sort of big, open-ended questions, you know, what happens when you give people unconditional cash to better understand the lived experiences of lower-income Americans and the challenges they were facing," she said.

• Sam Altman's basic-income study showed recipients valued work more after getting monthly payments.
• The finding challenges arguments against such programs that say a basic income discourages work.
• Participants got $1,000 a month for three years, making it one of the largest studies of its kind.

New findings from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's basic-income study found that recipients valued work more after receiving no-strings-attached recurring monthly payments, challenging a long-held argument against such programs.

Altman's basic-income study, which published initial findings in July, was one of the largest of its kind. It gave low-income participants $1,000 a month for three years to spend however they wanted.

Participants reported significant reductions in stress, mental distress, and food insecurity during the first year, though those effects faded by the second and third years of the program.

"Cash alone cannot address challenges such as chronic health conditions, lack of childcare, or the high cost of housing," the first report in July said.

In its new paper, researchers studied the effect the payments had on recipients' political views and participation, as well as their attitudes toward work.

They found little to no change in their politics, including their views on a broader cash program.

"It's sort of fascinating, and it underscores the kind of durability of people's political views that lots of people who felt kind of mildly supportive of programs like this before, they stay mildly supportive; people who were opposed, they stay opposed," David Broockman, coauthor of the study, told Business Insider.

Universal basic income has become a flashy idea in the tech industry, as leaders like Altman and newly minted government efficiency chief Elon Musk see it as a way to mitigate AI's potential impact on jobs.

Still, enacting universal basic income as a political policy is a heavy lift, so several cities and states have experimented with small-scale guaranteed basic incomes instead. These programs provide cash payments without restrictions to select low-income or vulnerable populations.

Data from dozens of these smaller programs have found that cash payments can help alleviate homelessness, unemployment, and food insecurity — though results still stress the need for local and state governments to invest in social services and housing infrastructure.

Critics say basic income programs — whether guaranteed or universal — won't be effective because they encourage laziness and discourage work.

However, OpenResearch director Elizabeth Rhodes told BI that the study participants showed a "greater sense of the intrinsic value of work."

Rhodes said researchers saw a strong belief among participants that work should be required to receive government support through programs like Medicaid or a hypothetical future unconditional cash program. The study did show a slight increase in unemployment among recipients, but Rhodes said that overall attitudes toward working remained the same.

"It is interesting that it is not like a change in the value of work," Rhodes said. "If anything, they value work more. And that is reflected. People are more likely to be searching for a job. They're more likely to have applied for jobs."

Broockman said the study's results can offer insights into how future basic income programs can be successful. Visibility and transparency will be key if basic income is tried as government policy because the government often spends money in ways that "people don't realize is government spending," Broockman said.

"Classic examples are things like the mortgage interest tax deduction, which is a huge break on taxes, a huge transfer to people with mortgages. A lot of people don't think of that as a government benefit they're getting, even though it's one of the biggest government benefits in the federal budget," Broockman said. "Insofar as a policy like this ever would be tried, trying to administer it in a way that is visible to people is really important."

Broockman added that the study's results don't necessarily confirm the fears or hopes expressed by skeptics or supporters of a basic income on either side of the aisle.

Conservative lawmakers in places like Texas, South Dakota, and Iowa have moved to block basic income programs, with much of the opposition coming from fears of creeping "socialism."

"For liberals, for example, a liberal hope and a conservative fear might be, people get this transfer, and then all of a sudden it transforms them into supporting much bigger redistribution, and we just don't find that," Broockman said.

Broockman said that many participants in the program would make comments like "Well, I used it well, but I think other people would waste it."

One hope from conservatives would be that once people become more economically stable, they could become more economically conservative, but Broockman said the study results do not indicate that either.

Broockman said that an unconditional cash program like this "might not change politics or people's political views per se" but that its apolitical nature could possibly "speak well to the political viability of a program like this."

• Guaranteed basic-income programs can help low-income participants afford necessities like rent.
• More than 100 US cities and counties have tried GBI, offering cash for housing and groceries. 
• Despite legislative opposition, basic-income programs remain active across the country.

Basic income gives many participants the financial boost they need to afford necessities.

Shamarra Woods, a 31-year-old Atlanta resident, spent basic income on bills and day care for her toddler.

For Jennette Fisher, 46, $500 a month allowed her to sign a lease for an apartment in a quiet Chicago suburb with her daughter.

"It took such a weight off," Fisher previously told Business Insider. "If I wouldn't have had that money, I don't know what would have happened."

Guaranteed basic income has become an increasingly popular strategy to approach poverty in US cities. More than 100 municipalities have tried the GBI model since 2019, offering low-income participants between $50 and $2,000 a month, no strings attached, for a set time period.

What makes basic income different from traditional social services is the element of choice. Most participants told BI they spent basic income on housing, groceries, transportation, and debt repayment — wherever they needed it the most.

Typically, participants fall below the federal poverty line. Some programs have focused on specific populations, such as new and expecting mothers, households with children, or people experiencing homelessness.

Basic-income pilots have been completed in cities and counties in Alabama, Virginia, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Mississippi, Louisiana, Indiana, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Washington, and Oklahoma, among other states. The Alaska Permanent Fund is similar to UBI, and several countries have basic-income programs.

GBI varies slightly from universal basic income, which also offers participants no-strings-attached cash payments but has no set time period. It's also not limited to participants in a specific demographic or income bracket.

Local and federal leaders continue to weigh the pros and cons of UBI. Basic-income programs have faced legislative opposition from some Republican lawmakers, who say that basic income discourages work.

For example, Iowa passed a ban on GBI in April, and the Arizona House of Representatives voted in February to ban basic income. On April 23, the Texas Supreme Court placed a temporary block on a Houston-area basic income program that the attorney general called "unconstitutional."

Despite these political challenges, basic-income programs remain active across the country. Here's a breakdown of states, listed in alphabetical order, where cash payments are offered to low-income residents.

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