More evidence that UBIs work

The report is back on another Universal Basic Income trial, this time in the USA. And as with the others, it shows that this policy works:

After getting $500 per month for two years without rules on how to spend it, 125 people in California paid off debt, got full-time jobs and reported lower rates of anxiety and depression, according to a study released Wednesday.

[...]

When the program started in February 2019, 28% of the people slated to get the free money had full-time jobs. One year later, 40% of those people had full-time jobs. A control group of people who did not get the money saw a 5 percentage point increase in full-time employment over that same time period.

“These numbers were incredible. I hardly believed them myself," said Stacia West, an assistant professor at the University of Tennessee who analyzed the data along with Amy Castro Baker, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

$500 a month is fairly low, but its also clearly enough to make a big difference to people's lives and wellbeing. The article has a caution that the limited duration of the experiment - two years - may mean it doesn't properly capture employment effects, as people may not quit their jobs if the money only lasts two years. The answer to that, of course, is longer experiments. And it would be nice to see such an experiment in New Zealand.