The Benefits of Cash Without Conditions

In Alaska, the Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) program, which is meant to provide $1600 to every resident who has lived in Alaska for at least a year, has been proven to reduce poverty and increase quality of life; the program has even been credited for Alaska's status as the state with the second highest income equality in the country. The Fund is meant to disperse wealth from the state's natural resources - but despite it's overall success, decreasing profits from the oil and gas industries has put the Fund in peril as lawmakers cut payments instead of implementing income taxes to generate revenue.

From New York to Ohio to California, librarians have teamed up with the USDA summer food service program, along with other non-profits, to feed kids dependent on free/reduced-price lunches during the school year. Using census data to locate communities of greatest need and data to measure participation trends, the collaborative has witnessed a surge in effectiveness and impact across the states. Families, librarians, and public officials alike express satisfaction and enthusiasm for the initiative and its future.

The city of Louisville, Kentucky, offered some residents of low-income neighborhoods $500 a month for a year with no strings attached as a part of its first ever guaranteed income program. The funds allowed people to start building savings and prevented evictions.

The Denver Basic Income Project provided people experiencing homelessness with no-strings-attached monthly stipends that they could spend however they’d like. At the end of the pilot, twice as many participants were in stable housing, more of them were working full time, and the nights that participants spent in shelters decreased by half.

The Denver Basic Income Project has provided more than $9.4 million in no-strings-attached payments to over 800 people experiencing homelessness. The nonprofit gives participants monthly stipends that they can spend however they see fit. As a result, more participants are finding housing, building financial stability, and finding stable employment.

Stockton, California is piloting a closely-watched experiment with Universal Basic Income, providing a $500 allowance each month for 18 months to 125 low-income families. Preliminary data captured during the first 5 months of the pilot show how recipients spend the money, but participants report benefits beyond the financial, like lower stress levels.

Following the Colombian civil war, the country enacted The Victims’ Law, which centered on providing reparations to those affected by violence and war. But since its creation, the law has only provided reparations to less than 11% of those who have applied, and for women survivors, it’s even less. Women, who are disproportionately affected by war because of the use of sexual assault, are coming together under the National Tablle for Victim’s Participation, are demanding more.

Direct cash transfers to poor people in developing countries is a newer way to spend foreign aid dollars. GiveDirectly is the prominent charity who pioneered this method of giving cash as a form of aid, with the rationale that poor people are better equipped to decide where a dollar should go than an outside organization. A study sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development aims to compare the effectiveness of cash transfers and traditional nonprofit programs. The results may shape the future of aid in America and around the globe.

In Michigan, private design firm Civilla successfully pitched a human-centered redesign of the state's unwieldy and redundant public benefits form. By highlighting and emphasizing the experience that applicants had with the old firm, Civilla convinced the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services to make a change, and the new form is now 22% more likely to be completed.

A project launched in the United Kingdom uses social-impact bonds to reduce recidivism among prisoners, bringing together public and private resources to implement more effective and cost efficient social programs. Their success is inspiring other countries to follow suit.