Opinion: Universal Basic Income Has Been Tested Repeatedly. It Works. Will America Ever Embrace It?
“Now, though, as the country emerges from the pandemic, the guaranteed income movement sits at a crossroads. The pilot programs have created scores of stories like Everett’s about how a small amount of money led to massive change in a recipient’s life. And a growing body of research based on the experiments shows that guaranteed income works — that it pulls people out of poverty, improves health outcomes, and makes it easier for people to find jobs and take care of their children. If empirical evidence ruled the world, guaranteed income would be available to every poor person in America, and many of those people would no longer be poor. But empirical evidence does not rule the world, and it is far from clear that there is a political path forward for guaranteed income on a large scale.”