Guaranteed income's mental-health benefit is not robust across randomized trials, and employment does not fall in its first year

Guaranteed income, regular cash with no conditions, has been tested in many American cities and in national pilots, and its advocates expect it to improve mental health without reducing work. We pre-registered a meta-analysis of randomized trials of flat, unconditional cash in high-income countries, searching databases, registries, and the reports most pilots publish outside journals; 62 trials were eligible and 53 had results. About a year into payments, mental health was better in the cash arms by 0.09 standard deviations (CI to ) across comparisons in a random-effects model, but the common-effect estimate, which weights the largest trials most, was ( to ), and smaller trials reported larger effects. Employment changed by percentage points ( to ), and the mental-health effect did not fade during payments. Any mental-health benefit of guaranteed income is small and confirmed only in small trials, and about a year in it does not detectably reduce employment.