If 100 homeless people were given $750 per month for a year, no questions asked, what would they spend it on?

That question was at the core of a controlled study conducted by a San Francisco-based nonprofit and the USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work.

The results were so promising that the researchers decided to publish results after only six months. The answer: food, 36.6%; housing, 19.5%; transportation, 12.7%; clothing, 11.5%; and healthcare, 6.2%, leaving only 13.6% uncategorized.

Those who got the stipend were less likely to be unsheltered after six months and able to meet more of their basic needs than a control group that got no money, and half as likely as the control group to have an episode of being unsheltered.

Archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20231221131158/https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-12-19/750-a-month-no-questions-asked-improved-the-lives-of-homeless-people

  • Bob Robertson IX
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    11 months ago

    I love the idea of this experiment and my hope is that it leads to some real programs that ultimately lead to UBI, however I hate the article… specifically the headline: “No Questions Asked”… then they go and start asking questions about how the money was spent. How about ‘$750 a month, no strings attached’, or ‘$750 a month to spend how they want’?

    Words have meaning and this should be important to people such as journalists who make a living through using words.