One morning in December 2024, Mikole Weeks, then 35, received a phone call with surprising news. She had been chosen for an experimental program called guaranteed basic income, and it came with cash: $1,330 a month for an entire year, with no strings attached for how it could be spent.
"It felt like another chance to turn my life around," said Ms. Weeks, a single mother and a part-time house cleaner in Santa Cruz, Calif. Only it did not turn out to be quite that simple. For decades, people have debated the merits of guaranteed income programs, also called universal basic income, as an alternative or complement to traditional welfare. Driving the efforts is the idea that the most effective way to improve people’s lives is to give them cash and let them spend it how they want.
The concept resurged in popularity a decade ago, driven by fears of automation and rising wealth inequality. Proponents argued that permanent payments would raise the standard of living for those on the margins, and ultimately lift millions off welfare. Critics contended that giving people money unconditionally would deter them from working in the first place. In the age of artificial intelligence, these programs have again become a hot topic. Tech titans including Elon Musk, Sam Altman of Open AI and Dario Amodei of Anthropic have hailed basic income as a solution to A.I.-fueled job losses.
In April, Mr. Musk posted that “universal HIGH INCOME” was the best way to deal with unemployment caused by the powerful technology. In June, Dr. Amodei suggested a tax on A.I. companies as one way to fund these payments. Across Silicon Valley, experimental guaranteed income programs have quietly taken off. Google began funding six different initiatives in 2022 as part of a $50 million donation to nonprofits in the San Francisco Bay Area, saying basic income could be a novel way to prevent homelessness in one of the nation’s most expensive locations.
Each program has hundreds of participants who receive around $1,000 a month, and academics study the results. State and federal tax laws limit the lengths of the programs and the payment amounts. The studies have found that most basic income programs improve short-term employment and mental health while reducing food insecurity. But while data from these efforts has been closely tracked, less is known about the individual journeys of participants.
In October 2024, after The New York Times contacted two social services providers that received Google’s funding, the organizations offered reporters the chance to follow basic income recipients in real time. The Times ultimately shadowed three people, including Ms. Weeks, to better understand their guaranteed income experiences, from their first payments through last month. All of the program participants, including the ones The Times followed, were previously homeless and transitioning off a housing stipend that paid for a portion of their rent, and many received the payments on top of other social assistance like food stamps.
The Times’s findings mirrored the academic studies. For all three recipients, the instant benefits of basic income were clear: They had breathing room for groceries, rent and other expenses. But the success of the payments in another area — giving people more free time and opportunity in the long term — was mixed.
"It’s a lot to ask of someone to get their life together in 12 months, when a lot of these issues are structural or systemic," said Jennifer Loving, who runs Destination: Home, a nonprofit that administers basic income programs in Silicon Valley. "And the world around them isn’t getting cheaper."
Mikole Weeks Ms. Weeks was homeless in 2023, living in a tent with her boyfriend at the time while struggling with drug addiction. "I was waiting for something to save me or kill me," she said. Then it came — she became pregnant with her son, Sky. Ms. Weeks saw the pregnancy as a sign to turn her life around, and she did. She got sober and secured a $2,100...
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