As AI Threatens Jobs, Musk and Altman's Support Revives the Universal Basic Income Debate
As worries about AI-driven job losses grow, calls for a universal basic income are resurfacing from unlikely allies. Tesla CEO Elon Musk has called for a "universal high income" funded by regular federal government checks, while OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has backed a similar concept and funded one of the largest UBI trials in US history through his nonprofit OpenResearch. That study gave $1,000 a month to 1,000 low-income participants in Texas and Illinois for three years, with a control group receiving $50 a month.
The results have been mixed. OpenResearch found recipients were about 2 percentage points less likely to be employed and worked 1.3 to 1.4 fewer hours per week than the control group, with household income outside the transfer dropping roughly $1,500 a year. A separate American Enterprise Institute analysis of more than 100 US pilots found that among the four largest, which together accounted for 55 percent of all participants studied, the average effect on employment was a drop of 3.2 percentage points. Cost estimates for a national program are steep: giving every American $1,000 a month would run about $3.7 trillion a year, roughly half of the current federal budget.
Despite the mixed data, the idea has picked up unusual momentum. New York State Assembly member Alex Bores, a Democrat running for a New York congressional seat, has argued direct payments are a necessary "insurance policy" against AI-driven job losses that haven't fully materialized yet but that many technologists expect are coming. Most economists who study existing pilot programs find limited evidence that cash payments boost employment or entrepreneurship at scale, and the largest, most rigorously designed trials have actually shown modest declines in work hours. The debate persists mainly because it's forward-looking: backers argue past pilots don't capture what happens if AI eliminates work at the scale some technologists predict, so the disagreement is as much about forecasting the future as reading current data.
What supporters say:
Backers argue that if AI does eliminate large numbers of jobs as some technologists warn, a basic income would be a necessary safety net rather than an optional program.
Direct cash payments avoid the bureaucracy of means-tested welfare programs and let recipients decide how to spend the money based on their own circumstances.
Some earlier pilots, including one in Stockton, California, found full-time employment among recipients nearly doubled compared to a control group, suggesting cash aid can sometimes free people to pursue better jobs.
What critics say:
The largest, most rigorously designed pilots, including OpenResearch's, found recipients worked less and didn't show meaningful gains in entrepreneurship or lasting mental health improvements.
A national program at even modest payment levels would cost trillions of dollars a year, an amount critics say the government cannot currently afford without major tax increases or cuts elsewhere.
Skeptics argue it's premature to build a massive new entitlement around a labor market disruption that hasn't been proven to be happening yet at the scale proponents describe.
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#UniversalBasicIncome #AI #FutureOfWork #EconomicPolicy
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