Universal basic income is sold as settled science: a check for everyone, paid for itself, proven by a decade of pilots. None of that survives contact with the record. The cost is roughly three trillion dollars a year. The largest honest trial found that recipients worked less and earned less. No country has ever run the thing being proposed. What follows is the evidence, quoted from the studies themselves.
Summary of findings
| Figure | Finding | Note |
|---|---|---|
| $3T | a year for a livable UBI paid to every U.S. adult — about three-quarters of all federal spending | 1 |
| 28¢ | of earned household income lost for every $1 of guaranteed income received | 2 |
| 0 | countries with a universal basic income in place today | 9 |
| 76.9% | of Swiss voters rejected unconditional basic income at the ballot in 2016 | 7 |
- IThe cost is enormous
- IIIt reduces work and earnings
- IIIThe pilots didn't deliver
- IVTargeted help does more per dollar
- VThe side effects nobody has measured
- VIIt's all still theory
- VIIAnswering the other side
Section I
The cost is enormous
A payment big enough to live on, paid to everyone, is not a line item — it is a restructuring of the entire federal budget.
A UBI at a livable level would cost about $3 trillion a year
Hoynes and Rothstein priced the canonical version: $12,000 a year to every U.S. adult. That is roughly three-quarters of all federal spending, before a single existing program is touched.1
“A universal payment of $12,000 per year to each adult U.S. resident over age 18 would cost roughly $3 trillion per year. This is about 75 percent of current total federal expenditures, including all on- and off-budget items, in 2017.”
Paying for it means nearly doubling federal tax revenue
Even wiping out the entire transfer system — welfare, food assistance, housing, the EITC — barely dents the bill. So the money has to come from somewhere new.1
“implementing this UBI without cuts to other programs would require nearly doubling federal tax revenue; even eliminating all existing transfer programs – about half of federal expenditures – would make only a dent in the cost.”
Section II
It reduces work and earnings
The one thing the trials do agree on: free money is spent, and some of it comes out of the paycheck.
The biggest recent U.S. trial: less work, less earned income
OpenResearch gave 1,000 low-income adults $1,000 a month for three years (2020–2023), against 2,000 controls. Recipients worked about 1.3 fewer hours a week, were 4.2 percentage points less likely to be employed, and their household income excluding the transfer fell by about $4,200 a year.2
“For every dollar received, total household income excluding the transfers fell by about 28 cents, and total individual income fell by around 16 cents.”
The 1970s U.S. experiments found the same thing
The government's own negative income tax experiments — Seattle/Denver, Gary, New Jersey — measured real declines in hours worked, concentrated among secondary earners and young people. That is decades of evidence pointing one direction.3, 1
Section III
The pilots didn't deliver
Where a UBI-like program has actually been run, the promised employment and health gains mostly never showed up.
Finland: no employment gain worth the money
Finland's nationwide 2017–2018 trial paid 2,000 unemployed people €560 a month. The official evaluation found small employment effects — roughly six extra days of work over the reference period — and the government did not continue the program. The economists who reviewed it were blunter about what the trial could prove.4, 5
“The evaluation design was severely compromised with some early policy choices; there were no effects on employment, nor on unemployment.”
Health gains faded within a year
The same U.S. trial measured stress, food security, hospital use, bloodwork and dental care. The benefits were real but brief, and there was no lasting health improvement to justify a permanent program.6
“it did not improve self-reported physical health, clinical biomarkers, or mental health after the first year, and we can rule out small effects on many outcomes.”
Voters said no, decisively
In June 2016 the Swiss were asked directly whether to write an unconditional basic income into their constitution. 76.94% voted no (1,897,528 against, 568,660 for), on a 47% turnout.7
Section IV
Targeted help does more per dollar
Universal is the whole point of UBI — and also its central flaw. The money has to go everywhere, including to people who don't need it.
Universal means the money drifts away from the poorest
Because it ignores need, age, disability and children, a UBI moves money toward households the current system already serves least well — and toward the middle of the income distribution.1
“A UBI would direct much larger shares of transfers to childless, non-elderly, non-disabled households than existing programs, and much more to middle-income rather than poor households. A UBI large enough to increase transfers to low-income families would be enormously expensive.”
The alternative isn't nothing — it's work-linked, means-tested support
The serious critique from the center-right isn’t “leave people to fend for themselves.” It’s that the same money, aimed at low wages and real need, buys more than a check sent to everyone.8
“a UBI would be extremely expensive and yet do very little to reduce inequality or advance opportunity and social mobility … the federal government should pursue a pro-work strategy of income support, paying wage subsidies to low-wage workers along with targeted transfer benefits consisting of both cash and near-cash types of support paid to the most needy individuals and households.”
Section V
The side effects nobody has measured
Trillions of new dollars, new taxes, and a rewritten benefit system would ripple through rents, wages, and prices. The pilots were never built to catch those ripples.
The questions that matter most are exactly the ones pilots can't answer
A few thousand recipients can't move national rents or wages. But a program funding itself into a tight housing market can — and the cost-of-living gains could quietly evaporate.9
“There are systemwide questions—around financing, inflation, linkages to pensions, relationship to minimum wages, and the political economy—that pilots cannot fully answer.”
Section VI
It's all still theory
This is the part the slogan leaves out. UBI is not a policy that has been tried and is now awaiting a decision. It is an idea that has never been tested at the scale, the amount, or the duration it is being proposed.
No country has ever actually had one
Not one. Two countries — Mongolia and Iran — ran a national version briefly, and both were partial or short-lived. Everything else is a pilot: small, temporary, and usually aimed at a slice of the population.9
“Currently, no country has a UBI in place, although there have been (and still are) several small-scale pilots and a few larger-scale experiences. Only two countries—Mongolia and the Islamic Republic of Iran—had a national UBI in place for a short period of time.”
The thing being proposed has never been run — not even as a pilot
This is the honest version of the evidence base. The experiments we have were deliberately made cheap and short so they could be afforded, which means they tested something other than the policy being advocated.1
“UBIs meeting the definition we laid out above – large enough to live on, without phase-out or other eligibility restrictions – have never been implemented in a rich country on a large scale or even in a pilot experiment.”
Small pilots can't answer the questions that decide it
Only 13 countries have ever run a UBI experiment: 125 people in Stockton, California; about 1,000 in Namibia; 2,000 in Finland; 4,000 in Canada. Nothing at the scale of a national program, over the time horizon a national program lasts.10, 1
“There have been no large-scale pilots that allow one to evaluate the longer-term consequences of these programs.”
We don't test social policy the way we test airplanes
The comparison is the authors' own. An airliner gets tens of thousands of test flights before anyone sells tickets. A program that could reshape the tax code gets a few hundred volunteers for two years, and then a political campaign.10
“Such robust, large-scale testing is hardly conducted with social policies, despite their massive scale and impact. In contrast to the airline industry, the attendant budget for research and development is tiny. Yet, the adverse impact of an untested social policy could be more damaging than crashing the A380.”
The famous “proofs it works” aren't UBI
Alaska's oil dividend is the standard example. It pays $1,000–$2,000 a year — not a basic income by any serious definition, and it is funded by a resource windfall, not by taxpayers. Stockton's trial was 125 people. Both get cited as if they settled the question.1, 10
“We know of only two examples of universal programs without strict eligibility requirements, though in each case the transfers are too small to qualify as a basic income as we define it. The Alaska Permanent Fund is a demogrant (with varying yearly payments), financed by the state's oil revenues. Payments in recent years range from $1,000 to $2,000 per year.”
It is an ideal people believe in, not a program that has been evaluated
Even the sympathetic literature says it plainly: the case for UBI rests mostly on what it means morally, and advocates still can't agree on what it is. A policy whose size, funding, and relationship to existing benefits are all unsettled can't be tested — and shouldn't be enacted.9, 1
“a UBI engenders interest as a societal ideal to which to aspire, and not merely a program.”
Section VII
Answering the other side
Every argument for basic income in the Business Insider explainer “Universal basic income pros and cons — according to experts” (Sep 2024), and the answer to each.
- Claim 01
cash fills the gaps in SNAP, Medicaid and housing vouchers
- Answer
gaps in a targeted safety net are fixed by fixing the targeted programs, not by mailing checks to millionaires. Brookings economists conclude that pro-work wage subsidies and targeted transfers do more for the poor per dollar than a universal payment, which is expensive and does little to reduce inequality.8
- Claim 02
over 100 U.S. pilots show basic income works
- Answer
the same article admits most of those pilots were short-term guaranteed income for selected low-income groups — not UBI. Denver and Atlanta tested a few hundred people for a limited time. A targeted, temporary grant succeeding says nothing about a permanent payment to 250 million adults.10
“There have been no large-scale pilots that allow one to evaluate the longer-term consequences of these programs.”
Lokshin & Umapathi, Brookings (2024) - Claim 03
cash improves mental health
- Answer
the largest U.S. randomized cash trial ($1,000 a month for three years) found no improvement in mental health, physical health, or clinical biomarkers after the first year. Stress and food-security gains were short-lived.6
- Claim 04
stability lets people trade several gigs for one better job
- Answer
in that same trial, recipients worked about 1.3 fewer hours a week, and household income excluding the transfer fell by about 28 cents for every dollar received — roughly $4,200 a year. People did not climb into better jobs; they earned less.2
- Claim 05
less economic stress reduces child abuse and domestic violence
- Answer
the Los Angeles and Illinois findings come from programs aimed at struggling families. If anything they are an argument for targeted support to at-risk households — exactly what UBI would dilute by spreading the same money across everyone.8
- Claim 06
a carbon tax, VAT, or taxes on high earners could pay for it
- Answer
the bill is about $3 trillion a year — roughly three-quarters of all 2017 federal spending — and would nearly double federal revenue. No carbon tax or tax on the rich comes close; a VAT large enough lands on everyday shoppers. The article itself concedes it is “difficult to definitively predict” what Americans would owe.1
- Claim 07
recipients spend locally, and UBI could grow GDP by 130%
- Answer
spending money taken from other taxpayers moves demand around; it doesn't create it. Measured earnings fell in the biggest trial. The 130% figure is a model of a world that doesn't exist — the kind of system-wide effect that, as the World Bank notes, pilots cannot test.2, 9
- Claim 08
people would need fewer social services, saving money
- Answer
paying for UBI by cutting existing programs takes money from the disabled, the sick and the poorest and hands a flat check to everyone, including the comfortable. Keeping those programs instead means paying for UBI on top of them.1
- Claim 09
Alaska's Permanent Fund shows universal payments work
- Answer
Alaska's check is small and paid from oil money, not taxes. Economists who study UBI say it is not a basic income at all.1
“We know of only two examples of universal programs without strict eligibility requirements, though in each case the transfers are too small to qualify as a basic income as we define it. The Alaska Permanent Fund is a demogrant (with varying yearly payments), financed by the state's oil revenues. Payments in recent years range from $1,000 to $2,000 per year.”
Hoynes & Rothstein, NBER Working Paper 25538 (2019) - Claim 10
permanent UBI would fix the “backslide” seen when pilots end
- Answer
that is a hope, not a finding — no one has ever run a permanent, livable, universal payment to see. The article itself calls true UBI “largely theoretical.”1
“UBIs meeting the definition we laid out above – large enough to live on, without phase-out or other eligibility restrictions – have never been implemented in a rich country on a large scale or even in a pilot experiment.”
Hoynes & Rothstein, NBER Working Paper 25538 (2019) - Claim 11
there isn't enough research to know if it causes inflation
- Answer
that is a reason not to do it. Injecting $3 trillion a year into the economy with unknown effects on rents and prices is a gamble — and the World Bank says pilots cannot settle financing or inflation questions.9
- Claim 12
we should “bet on families” to know how to manage their own money
- Answer
nobody is arguing families can't budget. The question is whether taxpayers should pay $3 trillion a year to send that money to every adult, rich or poor. In the largest U.S. trial, recipients used the money partly to work less: household earnings fell about 28 cents for every dollar received.1, 2
- Claim 13
the benefits are hard to measure, so we should listen to participants' stories
- Answer
a trillion-dollar policy needs more than stories. When the largest randomized trial did measure results, mental and physical health showed no lasting improvement, and the early gains in stress and food security faded.6
- Claim 14
unlike SNAP or housing vouchers, cash can go to anything, like a car repair
- Answer
that flexibility can be added to existing programs, such as emergency grants or more flexible benefits, without paying everyone. A universal check spends most of its money on households that never needed help with the car repair.8
- Claim 15
in Denver, homeless participants found more stable housing
- Answer
that was a small, temporary program for people experiencing homelessness, which is targeted help, not UBI. It supports funding programs for homeless people, not a payment to every American. Brookings warns that results from small pilots often fail to hold up when scaled to a whole country.10
- Claim 16
in Atlanta, recipients paid electric bills on time and ate regular meals
- Answer
of course people given extra money pay more bills. That is true of any cash aid. The real question is the cost of doing it for everyone, and the Atlanta pilot was a short, targeted trial that cannot answer it.10
- Claim 17
young people in New Orleans put the money back into local businesses
- Answer
that money was first taken from someone else, whether taxpayers or donors, who would also have spent it. Moving spending from one place to another doesn't create new wealth. And in the biggest trial, people's own earnings went down, not up.2
- Claim 18
Canada already had a universal basic income in the 1970s
- Answer
it didn't. Manitoba's “Mincome” was a time-limited experiment for lower-income households, and benefits were cut by 35 to 75 cents for every dollar earned. It was shut down in 1979, and Canada never adopted it.11
- Claim 19
pilots are running in Brazil, China, Germany, India, Iran and Ireland
- Answer
a pilot is not a policy. After decades of trials, no country pays its people a basic income large enough to live on. The fact that nations keep testing it and never adopting it is itself the evidence.1
“UBIs meeting the definition we laid out above – large enough to live on, without phase-out or other eligibility restrictions – have never been implemented in a rich country on a large scale or even in a pilot experiment.”
Hoynes & Rothstein, NBER Working Paper 25538 (2019) - Claim 20
states like California, New Mexico and Oregon are moving toward basic income
- Answer
when voters got a direct say, they rejected it. Oregon's Measure 118, which would have sent every resident a yearly rebate paid for by a new corporate tax, was defeated in November 2024 by about 77% to 23%.12
- Claim 21
it guarantees everyone a floor in a civilized society
- Answer
a floor is a goal every safety-net program shares. UBI's appeal is moral, not evidential — and when voters were asked directly, in Switzerland, 76.9% said no.9, 7
“a UBI engenders interest as a societal ideal to which to aspire, and not merely a program.”
World Bank, “Exploring Universal Basic Income” (2020)
The bottom line
UBI asks taxpayers for trillions to fund a program that, in the best-designed trials that exist, reduced work and earnings without lasting health gains — while sending money to people who don't need it. And the trials that would settle the argument have never been run: no country has ever had a real UBI, and the pilots we have were too small, too short and too cheap to answer the questions that matter. Targeted, work-linked support does more with less, and it has actually been tested.
Notes & sources
- 1Hoynes, Hilary & Jesse Rothstein. “Universal Basic Income in the US and Advanced Countries.” NBER Working Paper 25538, February 2019. nber.org
- 2Vivalt, Eva, Sean Rhodes, Talja Bartik, Matthew Broockman, Florian Krause & Ethan Miller. “The Employment Effects of a Guaranteed Income.” NBER Working Paper 32719, 2024. nber.org
- 3Robins, Philip K. “The Impact of Negative Income Tax Experiments: An Overview.” Journal of Human Resources, 1985. jstor.org
- 4Gentilini, Ugo. “Making quasi-sense of recent basic income initiatives.” Brookings Institution, 13 March 2019. brookings.edu
- 5Kela. Reporting on the basic income experiment 2017–2018. Kela research newsletter archive. newsletter.kela.fi
- 6Miller, Ethan, Sean Rhodes, Talja Bartik, Florian Krause, Matthew Broockman & Eva Vivalt. “Does Income Affect Health? Evidence from a Randomized Guaranteed Income Trial.” NBER Working Paper 32711, 2024. nber.org
- 7Swiss Federal Chancellery. Popular vote of 5 June 2016 — “Federal Constitution – Unconditional basic income.” Official results. abstimmungen.admin.ch
- 8Kearney, Melissa S. et al. “Universal basic income as a policy response to current challenges.” Brookings / Aspen Economic Strategy Group, 2019. brookings.edu
- 9World Bank. “Exploring Universal Basic Income: A Guide to Navigating Concepts, Evidence and Practices.” 2020. worldbank.org
- 10Lokshin, Michael & Nithin Umapathi. “Scaling up social policies.” Brookings Institution, 18 January 2024. brookings.edu
- 11“Mincome.” Wikipedia — overview of the Manitoba Basic Annual Income Experiment, 1974–1979. en.wikipedia.org
- 12Ballotpedia. “Oregon Measure 118, Corporate Tax Revenue Rebate for Residents Initiative (2024).” ballotpedia.org