Findings

Participants Enter RISE With Little Financial Margin

Most participants enter RISE with little room between income and essential expenses, limited savings, and little ability to absorb emergencies.

Participants’ Barriers Are Widespread and Often Interconnected

Participants face challenges across multiple life domains at once, and barriers in one area often compound others.

Support is Layered, Reciprocal, and Uneven

Many participants combine government assistance, family support, and community resources to get by—but supports are uneven and rarely create security.

What RISE Participants Say They Are Focused On

Participants are focused first on financial stabilization, while still describing longer-term goals for their families, futures, and communities.

Participants Enter RISE From Different Starting Points

While financial strain is widely shared, participants vary meaningfully by income, age, challenge severity, available support, and county.

Baseline Demographics of RISE Study Participants

Baseline demographic table of RISE study participants

Can AI Help Surveys Keep Up with How People Work Today?

We examine how conversational AI surveys can improve measurement of employment and economic life, showing what they capture and where methods are evolving.

Can Conversational AI Improve Survey Research?

Early Insights from Testing a Chat-Based Survey

NBER Working Paper: Parenting and Children

We study the effect of unconditional cash transfers on parental behaviors and investments and children’s social, behavioral, and educational outcomes.

Participant Perspectives on Parenting

Quotes from 6 waves of qualitative Interviews with 117 parents

Qualitative Working Paper: Parental Investments in Children

We explore the mechanisms through which cash transfers impacted the quality and quantity of time parents spend with their children.

Buying Back Time

Cash didn't just change parents’ budgets; it transformed how many of them structured their time.

Key Findings: Parenting and Child Outcomes

Examining the relationship between parental income, parenting, and child outcomes using quantitative data and qualitative insights into family life.

Cash Transfers in Rural America

Exploratory Findings from the OpenResearch Unconditional Cash Study

Insights from OpenResearch on the 2021 Expanded Child Tax Credit

Lessons for policymakers from the most comprehensive study on cash transfers in the U.S

Participant Perspectives on Policy

Participant perspectives on policy from round 5 qualitative interviews

NBER Working Paper: The Causal Effects of Income on Political Attitudes and Behavior

We study the causal effects of income on political attitudes and behavior with a field experiment.

Key Findings: The Impact of the Cash on Attitudes Towards Work

Receiving an unconditional cash transfer leads to increased belief in the intrinsic value of work

Key Findings: Political and Social Attitudes and Behaviors

The causal effects of income on political attitudes and behavior

The American Dream

For those living near the federal poverty level, the promise of the American dream has come to represent surviving rather than thriving.

Key Findings: Savings

Cash provides people more financial freedom to respond to changes in their needs and circumstances.

Key Findings: Financial Health

Unconditional cash led to improvements in recipients’ self-reported financial health and an increased ability to weather financial shocks.

NBER Working Paper: Consumption and Household Balance Sheets

The Impact of Unconditional Cash Transfers on Consumption and Household Balance Sheets: Experimental Evidence from Two US States

Key Findings: Employment

Recipients had increased agency to make employment decisions that worked best for them and their families.

Key Findings: Health

Cash is one piece of the puzzle in confronting deep-seated health disparities.

Key Findings: Entrepreneurship

Cash increases possibilities for people to explore entrepreneurship.

Key Findings: Agency

The amount of agency a person has is in part determined by the resources available to them and barriers in their path.

Key Findings: Moving

Recipients were more likely to move housing units, move neighborhoods, and pay for housing.

NBER Working Paper: Employment

The Employment Effects of a Guaranteed Income: Experimental Evidence from Two U.S. States

NBER Working Paper: Health

Does Income Affect Health? Evidence from a Randomized Controlled Trial of a Guaranteed Income

Key Findings: Spending

Cash is flexible and allows people to spend on their unique needs.

The Financial Gift That Keeps on Giving

The cash allowed some recipients to provide more financial support to others.

How Unconditional Cash Transfers Filled The Gap

Black people are more likely to want to start a business and less likely to get a business loan