UBI Piloters' Network
Newsletter 23, Dec, 2025
Why we’re giving incarcerated women cash relief
Women are the fastest growing incarcerated population in the United States.
The female incarceration rate has ballooned by more than 700% since 1980 – 172,700 women and girls were in jail or prison in 2023. A quarter of these (46,300) are confined because they were either refused bail or cannot afford it, rather than because they were found guilty of a crime. Over 14,000 are awaiting trial for drug-related offences.
Even brief contact with the prison system can have life-long impacts. It can increase the amount of time spent unemployed or out of the labour force by as much as four years, and reduce lifetime earnings by up to 50%. It can also exclude someone from many forms of employment, for example by running afoul of one the staggering 27,000 national, state and local rules that exist to bar formerly justice-involved people from holding professional licenses.
Read full article Here
Why the US needs basic income as reparations for racial injustice
Slavery caused stark wealth inequalities in the US – now that wealth must be returned to its rightful owners
he US colonial project kidnapped nearly 11 million people from Africa as part of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Slavery was fundamental to nearly all industries in the US, and accounted for 32% of America’s workforce by 1800. The profits generated through slave labour helped fuel the industrial revolution, establish Wall Street, and fund prestigious universities including Harvard, Yale, and Columbia.
When the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution abolished slavery in 1865, its drafters included an exception that allowed for the continued use of involuntary servitude “as a punishment for crime”. This exception clause has shaped the lives of millions of Americans ever since.
Read the full article Here
India’s Unconditional Cash Transfers Grow 23x in a Decade, Cross INR 2.8 Lakh Crore: Project DEEP Report
A first-of-its-kind national report charts the rise of UCTs in India and lays out a roadmap for citizen-centric, dignified welfare.
Unconditional cash transfers (UCTs) in India have witnessed a 23-fold surge over the last decade, with allocations reaching an unprecedented INR 2,80,780 crore in 2024–25. This accounts for 0.9% of India’s GDP and 11% of total social sector spending—surpassing flagship programs like MGNREGA and food security in budgetary outlay. These findings are a part of a new nationwide report by Project DEEP, titled “Unconditional Cash Transfers in India: Tracing the Journey, Shaping the Future”, that examines this transformational shift in India’s welfare landscape and outlines a forward-looking agenda to make cash-based welfare more inclusive, impactful, and future-ready.
Read the Full article Here
The American Guaranteed Income Studies: Madison, Wisconsin
In the fall of 2022, Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway launched the Madison Forward Fund (MFF) as a local proof of concept designed to “build momentum for a sustained federal program that will bring stable support for families” (Gongora, 2022). Funded by private donors and philanthropy, MFF provided 155 Madisonians with $500/month of unconditional cash for one year. Madison residents were eligible to apply for MFF if they were adults living below 200% of the Federal Poverty Line with a child under the age of 18 in their home. MFF was a partnership between the City of Madison, Mayors for a Guaranteed Income (MGI), Total Administrative Services Corporation (TASC), the Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW-Madison), and the Center for Guaranteed Income Research (CGIR) at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn).
Read the full Report Here
The American Guaranteed Income Studies: Ithaca, New York
In collaboration with Mayors for a Guaranteed Income (MGI) and the Human Service Coalition of Tompkins County (HSCTC), former Mayor Svante Myrick first announced Ithaca, New York’s guaranteed income (GI) pilot, Ithaca Guaranteed Income (IGI), in late 2021. Eligibile individuals consisted of caregivers, defined broadly to include people who spend significant unpaid time caring for children and/or aging, ill, or disabled adults (including parents) either in or out of their home. Applicants had to live within the City of Ithaca with a maximum income of 80% area median income (AMI). As the independent research partner, the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Guaranteed Income Research (CGIR) randomized 242 participants from an initial pool of approximately 390 applicants, with the sample weighted according to the racial and ethnic distribution of Housing Cost Voucher (HCV) recipients. Of these participants, 110 caregivers in the treatment group received $450 monthly for 12 months from June 2022 to May 2023; the remaining 132 served as the control group and received no cash.
Read the Full report Here
The American Guaranteed Income Studies: Newark, New Jersey
Lump-Sum vs. Recurring Cash Transfers
As part of his broader commitment to prioritize economic growth; address economic, educational, and health disparities; and respond to persistent and systemic structural barriers to economic security exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, Mayor Ras J. Baraka launched the Newark Movement for Economic Equity (NMEE) in the fall of 2021. NMEE provided $6,000 per year for 2 years to 400 adult Newark residents with incomes below 200% of the federal poverty line (FPL) and who had been negatively impacted by COVID-19 (Center for Guaranteed Income Research, Stanford Basic Income Lab, & Mayors for a Guaranteed Income, 2023). Both supporting its community and adding to the research base on unconditional cash distribution, Newark implemented a novel model of two types of cash transfers, providing 200 recipients with 2 years of recurring bi-monthly cash transfers (i.e., $250 twice a month) and 200 recipients with 2 years of semi-annual lump-sum payments ($3,000 twice a year). This model was designed to provide actionable evidence to federal- and state-level policy makers about how to most effectively structure unconditional cash payments.
Read the Full report Here
Guaranteed Income and Reconstructing Home
Housing, Parenting, and Educational Outcomes in Newark, New Jersey
The concept of home encapsulates security, dignity, and rootedness. The freedom to choose one’s home, and to make it a place of comfort and refuge, is a vital component of a healthy society. Over the years, however, policies grounded in structural racism have prevented many low-income Black residents from being able to nurture a sense of home. This report further examines the impact of guaranteed income (GI) on housing outcomes among participants of the Newark Movement for Economic Equity (NMEE) GI pilot (Tandon et al., 2025).
Read the full Report Here