The largest randomised trial of universal basic income to date: in 195 villages in Siaya and Bomet counties, every adult receives either a monthly UBI for 12 years, a monthly UBI for two years, or a one-off lump sum, compared with 100 control villages. Early results show more enterprise and no fall in total work.
GiveDirectly, a charity founded by economics graduate students in the late 2000s, pioneered unconditional cash transfers delivered by mobile money in East Africa. Studies of its one-off transfers in rural Kenya have found large gains in consumption and assets for recipients, positive spillovers for neighbours and firms, and minimal inflation. The Kenya basic income study asks a different question: what happens when an entire community is promised a basic income for many years?
Most basic-income pilots are small, short and targeted. To test universality and permanence, the researchers wanted payments to every adult in whole villages and a credible commitment lasting long enough to change expectations — set at 12 years. GiveDirectly launched the project in 2016 with a pilot village and describes it as a $30 million study.
Transfers are funded by GiveDirectly's donors; the research was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and an anonymous donor. In long-term UBI villages, the transfers amounted to about 15% of total spending in control villages — a large injection into local economies. Because the study treats whole villages, it can measure effects on local markets, prices and public goods, not just on recipients.
The 2023 working paper reports surveys from October 2019 to January 2020, when all three treatment arms had received roughly the same amount. Communities receiving the long-term UBI saw substantial economic expansion: more enterprises, higher revenues and costs, and net revenues up by slightly more than 50%, concentrated outside agriculture. Labour supply did not change overall but shifted from wage employment towards self-employment. Consumer prices in nearby markets did not measurably rise, though estimates were imprecise. The lump sums had similar, if not larger, economic effects; the short-term UBI had noticeably smaller effects despite delivering the same capital so far. GiveDirectly's summary adds that the short-term UBI reduced depression more than the lump sum, that cash did not increase drinking, and that savings-group participation rose, most sharply in the long-term arm.
Long-term payments are scheduled to continue for 12 years from 2018, so the study's central question — what a durable, universal floor does to lives and communities — will be answered over the next decade.
295 villages randomised (44 long-term UBI, 80 short-term, 71 lump sum, 100 control). By late 2019, long-term UBI villages had more enterprises and net revenues up slightly more than 50%; total labour supply was unchanged, shifting to self-employment. Lump sums did as well or better economically.
The study randomised 295 villages in Siaya and Bomet counties: 44 to a 12-year monthly UBI of $0.75 a day per adult, 80 to the same for two years, 71 to a lump sum of about $500 per adult and 100 to control.[1]
After about two years, long-term UBI villages had more enterprises and net revenues up by slightly more than 50%; labour supply did not change overall but shifted from wage work to self-employment, and lump sums had similar or larger economic effects.[1][2]
A separate GiveDirectly programme of one-off transfers of about $1,000 to over 10,500 poor households in 653 villages in rural Kenya produced large spillovers to non-recipients and firms, minimal inflation and an estimated local multiplier of 2.5.[1]