What is a basic income?
A universal basic income is defined by three features. It is universal – everyone in a defined group receives it, with no means test. It is unconditional – it requires no work and no job search. And it is permanent, not limited in time.
That is where the trouble starts: almost no experiment the media calls a “basic income pilot” satisfies all three features at once. Most satisfy only one of the three. This matters, because someone who knows the money will stop in two years behaves differently from someone receiving a permanent income.
This analysis from BTUAI goes through each of the major cases worldwide and answers one question: what was actually measured.
Finland. In 2017-2018, 2,000 people received €560 a month. Result: no effect on employment – the group receiving the money worked 49.64 days over the year, the control group 49.25. One important detail: only unemployed people were eligible, and the payment replaced their existing benefit. This was not a universal income.
The United States. The largest experiment ever run was financed by Sam Altman: 3,000 participants, three years, $1,000 a month. Result: labour force participation fell by 4.2 percentage points and hours worked by 1.3 a week. No effect on health was recorded, and the effect on net worth was zero. It is the only study in this field to have passed rigorous peer review.
Stockton, California. 125 people, $500 a month. Full-time employment rose from 28% to 40% – the figure that made it into thousands of articles. In fact the report was preliminary, never peer-reviewed, and based on data for about 86 people. The pattern is this: the smaller the study, the more positive the result. Across the four largest US programmes, employment fell by 3.2 percentage points.
Kenya. The one place where universality was genuinely tested: every adult in a selected village received the money, some of them for twelve years. Result: total hours worked did not change, but people moved from paid employment to their own businesses. Every dollar paid out turned into $2.50 of local economic activity, and prices rose by only 0.1%.
Alaska. Since 1982 the state has paid an annual dividend to every resident – the only genuinely permanent and universal payment in the world. There is no effect on employment, and poverty falls by 20-40%. Three caveats: the sum is only $1,000 a year, it is financed by oil rather than taxes, and it has no legal protection – the formula written into law has not been followed for ten years.
Iran. In 2010 the country abolished bread and fuel subsidies and in their place gave 96% of the population a monthly payment worth 29% of median income. No negative effect on work was found. The programme collapsed anyway: the sum was fixed in nominal terms and inflation destroyed it. Today that same sum is worth 31 cents a month; at the outset it was worth $45.
Switzerland. The only country where the decision was taken directly by voters. In the 2016 referendum 76.9% voted against, and the idea lost in all twenty-six cantons. The most interesting part is the survey beforehand: only 2% said they would stop working, but about a third believed other people would. People are not afraid of their own idleness; they are afraid of other people’s.
What does a basic income cost?
In 2017 the OECD did the calculation directly: take the money now spent on social benefits and hand it out equally, and in Britain you get £230 a month – and even that requires a 25% increase in income tax. But the main result is different: in three of the four countries modelled, poverty would rise rather than fall, because the money is taken from the people it is currently targeted at.
The shortest formulation belongs to the Nobel laureate Daron Acemoglu: “UBI is expensive and not generous enough.” And every permanent universal payment in the world – Alaska, Macau, the Cherokee community is financed from oil, gambling or mining rents. Not one of them is paid for out of taxes.
This analysis was prepared by the academic team of the Business and Technology University (BTU) together with BTUAI and draws on publicly available industry reports and research. The full report, with charts, is attached as a separate file.
Citation: Business and Technology University (BTU) & BTUAI. (2026). Basic Income — What We Actually Know. Tbilisi, Georgia.