CBS 17
Experiment in guaranteed income leads to more work and better health, analysis shows
More than two years after a group of residents from a northern California city first started receiving monthly cash payments with no-strings attached, the results of the public policy experiment are in: guaranteed basic income — designed to create an income floor — works, according to an analysis of results from the Stockton Economic Empowerment Demonstration (SEED).
“The $500 removed material barriers to full-time employment and created capacity for goal-setting and risk-taking. So what this means, practically speaking, is that there are a lot of folks out there who were eligible for full-time employment, but literally could not take a single shift off of work to apply for a new job,” said Amy Castro Baker, assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a co-author of the program’s economic analysis.