Initiatives offering direct financial support to individuals are gaining popularity throughout the United States. Nevertheless, these programs frequently encounter opposition. Critics contend that unrestricted cash distributions might promote risky behaviors. They suggest that beneficiaries could rapidly use the funds for substances like alcohol or drugs, thereby heightening the chances of accidents or fatalities.
A comprehensive 11-year investigation into Alaska’s established cash distribution initiative counters these apprehensions. The research team discovered no indications that such direct monetary transfers elevate the risk of severe injuries or mortality.
This research was carried out by experts from New York University, the University of California San Francisco School of Medicine, and the former chief medical officer of Alaska. The results appeared in the American Journal of Epidemiology.
“Previous studies have demonstrated that cash transfers serve as a powerful mechanism for alleviating poverty, yet their adoption is frequently hindered by detractors concerned about reckless expenditure leading to disastrous outcomes,” explains Sarah Cowan, a sociologist at NYU and the founder and executive director of the university’s Cash Transfer Lab, which led the investigation. “Such apprehensions lack foundation. Our extensive analysis of an entire state’s residents reveals no association between cash transfers and significant injuries or fatalities.”
Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend Serves as Key Real-World Example
The examination focused on Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD), a program that delivers yearly payments to all eligible state residents.
“In my role as an emergency physician, I initially feared that the annual PFD might cause prompt harm, but serving as Alaska’s chief medical officer and public health leader taught me the value of examining data impartially,” notes Anne Zink, who held the position of chief medical officer for the State of Alaska from 2019 to 2024 and is currently a senior fellow at the Yale School of Public Health. “This research delivers the population-wide data that public health professionals and decision-makers require to assess guaranteed income initiatives. Reviewing the full state population over more than a decade, we found no signs of heightened trauma or death rates linked temporally to the PFD cash disbursements.”
Prior investigations into cash transfer effects have yielded inconsistent results. Certain analyses detected no relation to injuries or deaths, whereas others hinted at possible correlations. The researchers emphasize that this latest study is distinctive because it encompassed every documented traumatic injury and death across the state and spanned a longer period than earlier efforts. Moreover, it evaluated a program encompassing an entire state’s diverse population, unlike many narrower guaranteed income pilots.
The collaborative team also featured Ruby Steedle, a key researcher at the Cash Transfer Lab and the primary author of the publication, alongside Tasce Bongiovanni, an associate professor of surgery at UCSF’s School of Medicine.
Alaska’s Long History of Universal Annual Payments
Beginning in 1982, Alaska has distributed annual payments to every resident. The sum varies each year but generally falls between $1,000 and $2,000 per individual. Given its decades-long operation and inclusion of the entire population, the program offers a unique lens for observing the real-world impacts of universal basic income and similar cash transfer mechanisms.
For their analysis, the scientists scrutinized records spanning 2009 to 2019. They delved into the state’s trauma registry, which logs all traumatic injuries managed in hospitals, and vital records capturing every reported death.
Statewide, the yearly cash distributions showed no correlation with rises in major traumatic injuries or unnatural-cause deaths in the immediate aftermath. These conclusions remained solid across various statistical validations. Notably, rates of injuries and deaths did not spike in the days to weeks following payment issuance, which typically happens in the autumn months.
Identical trends emerged in Alaska’s urban areas, which mirror small and mid-sized cities elsewhere in the mainland United States. This implies the findings could extend applicability beyond Alaska’s borders.
“Collectively, these results furnish compelling proof that claims of immediate harm from cash distributions are baseless,” the authors assert in their summary.
Additional contributors to the paper include Robert Pickett, Hailie Dono, and Erica Hobby from NYU’s Cash Transfer Lab, as well as Byungkyu Lee, an assistant professor in NYU’s Department of Sociology.
