Universal basic income (UBI) is an anti-poverty idea fashionable among progressives – and even a few conservatives. Just give cash payments without restrictions to people below the poverty line.

Our friends at Kite & Key media have produced a nifty video summarizing a comprehensive study from OpenResearch, an organization backed by OpenAI CEO (and UBI supporter) Sam Altman.  It took 3,000 lower-income people and gave two-thirds of them $50 a month and one-third of them $1,000 a month.

Three years later, the study found the people who got more money actually ended up worse off. They worked fewer hours and stayed unemployed longer than the people who only got $50. And that most of their newly found free time was just spent on “leisure.”

To top it off, the people who received $1,000 a month actually ended up with less money in the bank than those of the people who got $50. They spent virtually all the extra money — and racked up more debt than the people who received smaller amounts.

The evidence is clear: Giving people free money is no way to solve long term poverty.