OpenResearch released the first results of the most comprehensive study on giving unrestricted cash grants to impoverished Americans. Researchers say it will flame both sides of the debate over welfare.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s decade–in-the-making effort to understand how handing out free money affects recipients and the broader economy delivered its first big results Monday. OpenResearch found that when it gave some of the poorest Americans $1,000 a month for three years with no strings attached, they put much of the money toward basic needs such as food, housing, and transportation. But what amounted to $36,000 wasn’t enough to significantly improve their physical well-being or long-term financial health, researchers concluded.
The initial results from what OpenResearch, an Altman-funded research lab, describes as the most comprehensive study on “unconditional cash” show that while the grants had their benefits and weren’t wasted on drugs and booze, they were hardly a panacea for treating some of the biggest concerns about income inequality and the prospect of AI and other automation technologies taking jobs.
I'll wager that if you gave $1000 a month to poor families in India or Africa it would be "enough to significantly improve their physical well-being or long-term financial health".
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For India, you can donate my NGO!! 😜
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indeed
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Knowledge is power when it comes to money management.. Bitcoin = sound money, fiat will be obsolete and worthless. (Bitcoiner mindset)
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I suspect the choice of candidates ("households earning about $30,000 annually") had a strong impact on the results.
If you're killing yourself working multiple low-paying jobs to barely survive, it makes sense you use a fifth of the gifted $1000 to reduce the hardest working hours. How many percent of those candidates did you expect to entirely safe the $1000 and invest?
What's the conclusion? We better not hand out this money, because then there aren't enough poor people forced to work those low-paying jobs, and the GDP might drop?
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I think that misinformation in the economic aspect greatly influenced how those people who were allocated that money... could not advance beyond covering their basic needs of food, clothing, etc.... it is quite difficult to fight against a system in which which everyone is taught in school about history... mathematics and biology... but they don't educate us financially about what money is and why it really exists or if it works for something or not... and so you can go to South American countries like For example, Venezuela, which is in a deep social and economic crisis, and giving people money like that, the result would be quite similar, it would not be enough for them or they would advance since they do not know what to do intelligently with it...
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The article is very interesting and complete, I believe that we all deserve to be supported as long as we need it. Money can solve temporary things, but how we use it and for what purpose we have it is what will improve our lives.
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First off, I am not sure I trust Sam Altman. Next, how did they choose the pool of people? Where in the country? There are so many factors I am sure they didnt consider.
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I have a bigger suggestion! Why not a rich person adopts one child from a poor family and pay for his/her education! That way the world can easily eradicate poverty!
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You forced the wealthy to take on ?
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Just not forced decision. Rather it should be taken as obligation.
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