"The Employment Effects of a Guaranteed Income: Experimental Evidence from Two U.S.
States"
at 3:30pm on Wednesday, April 3, 2024 in 310 Silsby.
ABSTRACT
We study the causal impacts of income on a rich array of employment outcomes, leveraging an experiment in which 1,000 low-income individuals received $1,000 per month unconditionally for three years, compared
to a control group of 2,000 participants randomized to receive $50/month. This is the largest unconditional cash transfer program evaluated by an RCT in the U.S. to date. We leverage detailed survey data, administrative records, and data from a custom mobile
phone app to understand the labor market responses to cash transfers, focusing not just on labor supply outcomes but also on other significant aspects of the labor market, such as time use, job search, quality of employment and preferences over amenities,
entrepreneurial activities, barriers to employment and disability, household composition, human capital formation, mobility, and take-up of benefits. We estimate a structural model of labor and consumption responses to compare the effects we observe with results
from other studies.