@[email protected]Aug 22, 2025
Scott Santens
I've been researching the idea of Unconditional Universal Basic Income since 2013. Here's a collection of findings I've compiled from various UBI experiments and studies of cash transfer programs around the world. This will be a VERY LONG and ongoing thread focused entirely on empirical evidence. 🧵
Dec 5, 2024 at 3:47pmWeb
Show threadScott SantensDec 5, 2024
UBI WORKS "We have not found any evidence of a significant reduction in labor supply. Instead, we found evidence that labor supply increases globally… and the existence of some insignificant and functional reductions…These reductions do not reduce the overall supply…" mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/22/9459
Show threadScott SantensDec 5, 2024
Alaska has had an annual UBI since 1982 averaging about $1500 per person per year. This is one impact: "There is no significant effect, positive or negative, on employment as a whole, although part-time work does increase by 1.8 percentage points, or about 17%." harris.uchicago.edu/news-events/...

Universal Basic Income Policie...
Universal Basic Income Policies Don’t Cause People to Leave Workforce, Study Finds

CHICAGO â€“ February 14, 2018 â€“ New research from the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy suggests that a universal basic income would not cause people to leave the workforce.

Harris School of Public Policy
Show threadScott SantensDec 5, 2024
Namibia tested UBI back in 2008. An entire village (adults and kids) got a fully universal basic income every month for two years. The percentage of people doing paid work rose from 44% to 55% and entrepreneurship went up 301%. Crime dropped by 42%; poaching by 95%. www.bignam.org/BIG_pilot.html
Show threadScott SantensDec 5, 2024
In basic income experiment after basic income experiment, and cash program after cash program, a practically universal result of unconditionally providing money to pregnant women is that their nutrition improves, and as a result their babies are born healthier. youtu.be/z5biBPNlKJs?...

Birth Weight and Cash Transfer...
Birth Weight and Cash Transfers

YouTube
Show threadScott SantensDec 5, 2024
Babies born healthier may be the most transformative of all Universal Basic Income effects. Epigenetics shows that healthier babies will be healthier adults, who will have healthier babies, and low birth weight is correlated to less healthy adults who earn less. www.science20.com/news/correla...
Show threadScott SantensDec 5, 2024
A common concern about universal basic income is that people will end up buying drugs with it but in study after study, abuse of drugs tends to go down when people are provided cash. Why? Because a big reason people abuse drugs is self-medication of life stressors. davidevans.blog/2016/11/29/t...

The poor don’t use cash transf...
The poor don’t use cash transfers on alcohol and tobacco. Really.

Two years ago, Anna Popova and I put out a working paper examining whether beneficiaries of cash transfer programs are more likely than others to spend money on alcohol and cigarettes (“tempt…

David Evans' personal blog
Show threadScott SantensDec 5, 2024
Universal Basic Income recognizes the social determinants of health like stress. What we treat in hospitals is largely the result of people having insufficient incomes or too much financial insecurity. This is how the Dauphin pilot reduced hospitalization rates by 8.5%. www.cmaj.ca/content/190/...
Show threadScott SantensDec 6, 2024
A fascinating UBI experiment started in 1997 in North Carolina when the ECBI began providing dividends to all its people and that coincided with an ongoing long-term study of child poverty. The kids grew into healthier, smarter adults who do less drugs and crime. academicminute.org/2014/06/jane...
Show threadShannonDec 31
I hope once the current regime is in ashes that the need for strong evidence based policy will be more clear. No policy should be based solely on emotion/reflex. I initially was skeptical of UBI, haven’t studied it like you have but the more I see, the stronger the case gets. Even Nixon supported!
Show threadShannonDec 31
And given the inroads of AI & automation jobs could decrease and/or change, can’t count on tech bros to consider implications of their work, will fail to make sure workers land safely, retrained. How much unnecessary costly stress can be reduced if you know yoj can keep a roof over your head?