Disillusioning, a crazy idea: has the dream of a universal basic income been shattered by a US study? Yes, finally, say critical voices. Not so fast, says Natalie Schröder of the Basic Income Pilot Project. The magic is far from gone–but she does wish the phantom of laziness would finally disappear.
Zero days of paid holiday. In a week, in a month, in a year–zero days of paid sick leave, no paid parental leave. The statistics chart is downright frightening: emptiness where there should be a bar.
The US is an exception here, and in the worst possible way: no other OECD country fails to guarantee its employees even a single minute of paid absence, whether for holidays, illness, maternity, or parental leave. In the US, a woman who has given birth may be left high and dry the same day–without any money–if she does not return to work immediately.
How might a universal basic income (UBI) affect people in the US? People in situations like those described above, for example? The recently published study by Open Research, a non-profit research institute founded by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, addresses precisely this question. And the results are fuelling new debates with familiar fears: everyone will stop working, the deadly sin of laziness will become rampant, and the world will be turned upside down.
The subjects of the Open Research study worked 1.3 hours less per week. It takes a lot of audacity to stand up in Germany, with at least 20 paid vacation days behind you, and loudly proclaim that working 1.3 hours less per week is a dangerous sign of laziness–behaviour that supposedly undermines the moral fabric of humanity and will ultimately bring down our economic system.
One point three hours less work per week–or about 15 minutes less per day, the equivalent of a coffee break–adds up to roughly eight extra days off per year.
This is what happens with a universal basic income. People take an average of eight days off a year instead of zero. Critics call this "refusal to work."
This so-called refusal to work seems entirely reasonable to me. It’s almost as if Germans had a good reason for granting their workers a "decadent" 30 days of paid holiday–because it makes people feel better and because it is only natural to carve out a modest eight days off when possible…such as through a universal basic income.
The open research study: What were the real results?
On the subject of laziness: the results of the study showed that employment rate increased significantly at the end of the three years, both among the participants who received a basic income and among the control group. This does not suggest any adverse effect, but also makes it clear that a basic income is no reason to stop working.
Participants with a basic income were also 2 per cent more likely to be unemployed. This may sound bad, but the reality is that these individuals spent an average of one month longer looking for a job. The ability to choose a job more carefully with a financial safety net could actually be considered a positive outcome.
But what I find even more important is that the employment status changed almost exclusively among adults with children and those under the age of 30. Single parents with a basic income were less likely to be employed and worked an average of 2.8 hours less per week than the control group. So, the supposedly "unemployed" simply switched to a different, unpaid form of work: raising children.
For those under the age of 30, education or vocational training is an obvious path, and the study participants were more likely to pursue it. I consider all of this to be positive, not a threat to the labour market.
And there are even more effects that I find difficult to interpret negatively, as some do: for example, entrepreneurial initiative among women and Black participants increased significantly with a basic income. Notably, the lowest-income earners also chose to provide more financial support to others, such as family and friends.
So far, so good. However, the big loser in the Altman study appears to be health: supposedly, there was no long-term improvement with a basic income. Stress and mental health problems decreased significantly in the first year, but the effect did not last.
Upon closer examination, a hasty and dismissive judgement is too simplistic. After all, each study can only research a specific group of people over a limited period.
The study involved participants between the ages of 20 and 40, a relatively young and therefore generally healthy group. If people of this age invested in their health within their first year of study, for example, they may require less medical treatment later. And that is exactly what was observed.
Participants made significantly more visits to the doctor and invested more in dental care. It is therefore quite possible that a three-year period is not long enough to observe sustainable improvements in health and that long-term effects were not yet measurable.
This may be especially true since the group that was studied consisted of low-income individuals who may have never had health insurance under the US healthcare system. Major procedures may not have been undertaken due to their extremely high costs and given that the cash payments were limited to three years.
What is clear, however, is that both hazardous alcohol consumption and painkiller misuse declined. Considering the number of deaths directly attributable to alcohol and painkillers, it is clear that a basic income certainly contributes to better health.
Where was the Altman basic income used?
What about the rest of the money? The participants with a basic income spent an average of $310 more per month, primarily on essentials: rent, transportation, and food. And yes, on leisure as well.
Perhaps that was not strictly necessary. But ideally, a good life is about more than just avoiding starvation. A puritanical view that spending money on leisure is wasteful depresses me.
Greater freedom to choose how to spend money–beyond mere survival–is often presented as a danger of basic income. Sarah Miller, a researcher who worked on the US study, tweeted a sentence about this at the end of July that stuck with me:
"Our participants purchased more leisure, food, housing, and other stuff. And different people chose different things. These choices did not appear to improve their health on average, but they were the things participants wanted, as revealed by their own choices. This is a feature of cash, not a flaw!"
What does this have to do with our basic income pilot project?
It wasn't long before questions arose about the Basic Income Pilot Project. What do we think of the US study? Does it cast doubt on our project? After all, there are similarities with our research project. What if nothing positive comes of it in the end?
Questions like this remind me of how the pilot project came about: "The My Basic Income Association is biased towards the UBI." This is a clever accusation that I can't completely deny. But that's exactly what the pilot project was started for!
It is a three-year study conducted by independent scientists to answer the question: Does a basic income demonstrably have positive effects on a group of subjects or not?
You don't have to believe us when we say that we honestly want to know the answer for ourselves–as the motto of the pilot project clearly states. We really do. After all, we could be spending our time pushing an idea that might not even work, or we could simply work even more without a break.
We see no reason for concern regarding the US study, but rather an incredible opportunity: the research took place during a similar period to our pilot project, and it is based on comparable questions and methodological approaches.
Since no individual study can be representative of an entire society, nor directly transferable to other countries, the US study does not allow any premature conclusions about what the Basic Income Pilot Project will reveal in April 2025.
However, the similarities enable a cross-border comparison of results. The parallels to the US study mean that, as soon as the pilot project results are available, they can be placed in an international context.
The USA is an interesting country of reference, as the partial lack of health and social security leads to different needs than in Germany. This means the release of our results will be particularly exciting.
Our goal is to contribute to a fact-based debate on universal basic income, which is exactly what the US study has done.
What next?
The most pessimistic assessments sadden me. But the hope of being pleasantly surprised by other people, and maybe even by myself, gives me strength—even if I sometimes doubt. I can't imagine giving up this hope so completely and wholeheartedly.
To declare the idea of a basic income a failure based on a study that actually suggests positive effects feels like premature gloating. After all, the goal is to enable countless people to live better lives, to find pathways out of poverty and financial hardship, and to test as many approaches as possible to achieve this. To focus first and foremost on the supposed inherent laziness of human beings—is that really a victory worth celebrating?
Incidentally, in classical theology, the deadly sin of sloth not only includes the poetic offense of 'sloth of heart,' but also ignorance. Hard-working critics of basic income who fail to investigate honestly, despite their strong convictions, are therefore not entirely free from this dreaded cardinal sin, either.
I can't stop thinking about the eight days off—and the incredible cynicism required to interpret this as laziness or a refusal to work. Sometimes I like to imagine that the loudest critics become participants in a basic income study. However, before the study begins, they have to test the opposite scenario: first, living in the initial conditions of the study participants.
In this case, that would mean completely giving up 30 days of paid holiday a year, living without paid sick leave, and then testing whether they truly wouldn't take a little more time off if given a basic income—or whether they would willingly work 365 days a year. Out of a moral imperative? To single-handedly boost the economy? Or simply to avoid being labelled lazy? Because that label certainly doesn’t feel good when you're actually fighting for survival.
But one thing at a time. First, the Basic Income Pilot Project is concluding the first long-term study on universal basic income in Germany. The analysis of the collected data will continue until the end of the year, and the results will be available in April 2025.
Then, maybe I'll write another piece asking why so many people still think basic income is a terrible idea. That, however, would be a good sign. After all, that is precisely the aim of our pilot project: to be able to revisit familiar discussions—but this time, with facts. I'll be very curious to see what happens. See you in April.
(To take an even deeper dive into the results of Altman’s Basic Income Experiment, I recommend this wonderful text by Scott Santens: Did Sam Altman's Basic Income Experiment Succeed or Fail?)