Los Angeles Basic Income Pilot Reports: Stable Employment Rates, Better Home Lives

The BIG:LEAP study compared the outcomes of households receiving cash payments with those of almost 5,000 households with similar income and family circumstances in a control group.

“There’s a really open question in the research and among policymakers about how much money is needed over what period of time to make a difference,” said Amy Castro, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania who co-authored the study. “What we saw with BIG:LEAP was that over that 12 months, families really engaged in an accelerated decision-making process to ensure safety.”

The study found that study participants were significantly more likely to find full-time work than those who were unemployed and not looking for work, felt able to meet housing costs, enjoyed greater food security and created a more harmonious home environment compared to the control group.

During the first six months of the program, participants were more likely than the control group to leave intimate partner violence situations. During the last six months, participants were more likely to establish close safety and work to protect themselves in the future.

Participants were also significantly more likely than the control group to enroll their children in enrichment classes. Bo-Kyung Elizabeth Kim, an assistant professor at UCLA, told BI that this finding suggests that parents are using money to improve their children’s futures and are increasingly having the time to take their children to these classes.

Study participants reported significantly less concern about the safety of their families compared with control group participants across all measurement periods—including six months after the last payment.

“Because they had that immediate safety, they were able to engage in their neighborhoods because they had time to do so,” Castro said. “They had time to parent, and they had time to build relationships with community leaders.”

Although many of these effects are significant, the effect sizes are not large for some variables. For example, 50% of control group participants reported having to eat less during the day because of lack of food compared to 42% of recipients.

The study found no negative impact of cash payments on participants, who were “significantly more likely to be in full-time employment than to be unemployed and not looking for work” compared to the control group.

Castro said the study reveals a broader range of positive outcomes for participants receiving unconditional cash payments than many previous studies.

In general, this contradicts what some critics of basic income claim, including that cash payments significantly reduce employment or do not prepare participants for the future. Some critics argue that these programs cost millions of dollars, often in taxpayer money, and encourage dependence on government assistance.

Guaranteed Income as a ‘Super Vitamin’ for Social Safety Nets

The pilot, which was one of the first to receive both private and public funding, was announced in October 2021 during Mayor Eric Garcetti’s administration and has continued under current Mayor Karen Bass with many of the same staff.

“This is really the end result of many, many years of organizing and development in government,” Castro told BI. “There’s been a lot of momentum for many years around saying we’re trying to solve the same poverty problems with the same tools, but we’re not getting anywhere.”

The authors emphasized that the program operated alongside the social safety net, not instead of it. As millions of Americans struggle to stay above (or have already crossed) the poverty line, social services are unable to keep them afloat.

“Guaranteed income is like a super vitamin and it filled the gaps in the social safety net,” Castro said. “Because of the pandemic, because of the amount of poverty that the city is experiencing, it really reinforced those cracks in the system.”

Housing cost burdens decreased among all study participants. Six months after cash payments ended, recipients were slightly more likely to be able to afford rent, and fewer had to live with friends or family.

“Even in cases where they couldn’t afford to make a drastic change in housing, they were able to move out of situations where they were sleeping on couches at a friend’s house — doubling up or tripling up and living in really tight, cramped quarters — and living independently,” Castro said.

While homelessness rates did rise for both groups 18 months after the payments began, the authors noted that the pilot was not designed to affect the homeless population. Castro noted that improvements in intimate partner violence — one of the leading causes of homelessness in the city — may have kept homelessness from rising further.

Castro said the study’s researchers expected a larger increase in emotional well-being than what actually happened, though they attributed that in part to higher stress levels during the pandemic.

“If you’re sitting in despair about the future because you can’t see a way out, you’re going to have a really hard time engaging with opportunities that might come your way,” Castro said.

But those who committed to the program by signing up and taking part found the most benefit from it, researchers say.

“The really important message is that people are not going to take this money that they’re getting and stop working and engaging in the workforce,” Kim said. “They’re still going to chip in. They’re still going to struggle, but they’re trying to move forward with some hope that they can be in a better place with an extra $1,000 a month.”