UBI Programs

United States

The Fairfax County Economic Mobility Pilot (FCEMP) provided monthly unrestricted cash payments of $750 to 180 randomly selected, income-eligible households for 18 months (October 2023-March 2025). The pilot targeted the United Way-defined 'ALICE' population (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) - working households earning above the Federal Poverty Level but below the basic cost of living in Fairfax County/Virginia. It also offered optional financial wellness coaching and social-connection events. The pilot was funded by federal American Rescue Plan Act dollars and the county's Human Services Innovation Fund, and evaluated by George Mason University researchers. The program's application period is closed and there are no current plans to continue or expand it.

Colombia

Familias en Acción was Colombia's flagship national conditional cash transfer program, launched in 2001-2002 and run by the government agency Prosperidad Social (formerly Acción Social/DPS). It paid low-income households bimonthly health and education cash incentives, conditioned on children's school attendance and growth/health checkups, to reduce poverty and build human capital. The program was funded by the Colombian national government, seeded initially with loans from the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. At its peak it reached roughly 2.6 million families and over 5 million children before being phased out and absorbed into the successor program Renta Ciudadana starting January 2024.

United States

The Family First Economic Support Pilot (FFESP) is a guaranteed income pilot run by Sacramento County's Department of Child, Family and Adult Services - Child Protective Services (DCFAS-CPS), implemented by United Way California Capital Region, providing 200 randomly selected parents/legal guardians of Black/African American and/or American Indian/Alaska Native children ages 0-5 in six targeted Sacramento zip codes with $725/month for 12 months. It is funded primarily through a California Department of Social Services Family First Prevention Services Act state block grant, with some private funding. MEF Associates serves as the independent evaluation partner, studying how guaranteed income affects family well-being and child welfare system involvement (CPS contact, allegations, substantiations, investigations, and foster care entry). Disbursements began in 2025 and concluded in May 2026.

United States

LIFT, Inc. (also known as LIFT Communities) is a national nonprofit, founded in 1998, that pairs economic mobility coaching with direct, unrestricted cash payments to parents of young children through its Family Goal Fund. Since 2018, the Fund has provided $150 in unrestricted cash every three months to enrolled parents across LIFT's four direct-service sites in Chicago, Washington D.C., Los Angeles, and New York City (Bronx). As of LIFT's most recent public reporting, the Fund has issued more than $1 million to over 1,400 families. The program is funded through a mix of corporate, foundation, government, and individual donors as part of LIFT's broader two-generation coaching model.

United States

Family Health Project (FHP) is an independent 501(c)3 nonprofit, funded solely by private philanthropists and foundations, that provides $400/month, unconditional cash payments to first-time mothers experiencing financial hardship for the first 36 months of their child's life. FHP embeds within Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), which refer eligible mothers into the program during their third trimester of pregnancy. Launched in Lynn, MA in May 2021, it has since expanded to Roxbury/Boston (Whittier Street Health Center, 2022) and Lawrence, MA (Greater Lawrence Family Health Center, April 2026), each site currently supporting up to 20 mothers. The program remains active and ongoing as of mid-2026, with rolling, referral-based enrollment rather than a fixed application window.

United States

FIEP is a guaranteed income pilot run by Jewish Family Service of San Diego in partnership with the County of San Diego's Child and Family Well-Being Department (CFWB). It gives families with children under 18 who are referred directly by CFWB — because they are considered at risk of entering the foster care system — unrestricted monthly cash support of $500 for 24 months. The program is funded with public (county) dollars and evaluated by the County's Office of Evaluation, Performance, and Analytics (OEPA) to study how unconditional cash affects family well-being and foster-care entry risk. Applications are closed; all recipients came from a lottery among CFWB referrals, with priority for unhoused families and residents of 39 Health Equity ZIP codes.

United States

Family Prosperity is a guaranteed basic income demonstration project in Las Cruces, New Mexico, administered by the Community Action Agency of Southern New Mexico (CAASNM) in partnership with Families and Youth Innovations Plus (FYI+) and Jardin de los Ninos. Funded by $1.7 million in City of Las Cruces American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) money, it provided 150 randomly selected single-caregiver families with $500 unrestricted monthly cash payments for 18 months starting July 2023. A comparison group of 150 additional families received $550 total for completing research surveys. New Mexico State University's Crimson Research evaluated the program's effects on poverty, health, education, and employment.

South Korea

Farmer and Fisher Opportunity Income is a Gyeonggi Province sectoral cash transfer that compensates registered farmers and fishers for the public/social value their work creates. Young, returning, and eco-certified farmers/fishers receive 150,000 KRW/month (paid as 900,000 KRW twice yearly) and general farmers/fishers receive 50,000 KRW/month (paid as 300,000 KRW twice yearly), disbursed entirely in city/county local currency (region-specific prepaid cards). Launched in 2024 with 9 municipalities and about 9,400 recipients, it expanded to 25 municipalities and about 192,000 recipients in 2025, and to 26 of Gyeonggi's 31 cities/counties (Guri newly joined) covering about 195,000 recipients in 2026. Five urban municipalities (Goyang, Seongnam, Anyang, Bucheon, Gwacheon) have opted out, citing the 50/50 provincial-municipal cost-matching burden and limited local agricultural bases. It is one of several Gyeonggi 'Opportunity Income' programs (alongside Artist, Athlete, and Youth Basic Income) launched under Governor Kim Dong-yeon.

Fiji

Save the Children Fiji, working with Save the Children Australia and Fijian government and civil-society partners, delivered unconditional digital cash assistance to nearly 39,000 vulnerable Fijian households (about 195,000 people, including 120,000 children) whose incomes were disrupted by COVID-19 and Tropical Cyclones Harold and Yasa. The entire US$20 million program was funded by a single anonymous philanthropic donor's gift to Save the Children Australia. Eligible households received Fijian-dollar payments directly into Vodafone's M-PAiSA mobile-money wallets, prioritizing families without income, single parents, pregnant women, people with disabilities or chronic illness, and survivors of gender-based violence. The project ran in two phases from December 2020 through January 2022 across Fiji's Northern, Central and Western divisions, and has since closed to new applicants.

United States

A lottery-based guaranteed income pilot funded with $12 million in federal ARPA money, providing about 1,000 low-income Phoenix families with $1,000/month for all of 2022, restricted to basic necessities like housing, childcare, and food.

Switzerland

A citizen-launched popular initiative that forced Switzerland's first-ever national referendum on universal basic income, held June 5, 2016. The proposal asked voters to add a constitutional mandate for the federal government to introduce an unconditional basic income for everyone, without specifying an exact amount, though campaigners floated a reference figure of roughly CHF 2,500/month for adults and CHF 625/month for children. Voters rejected the initiative decisively, 76.9% to 23.1%, on turnout of about 46%. Because it failed, no UBI program was ever implemented, funded, or disbursed in Switzerland as a result of this vote. The event is catalogued here as a landmark policy referendum, not as an operating direct-giving program.

United States

Foundations for the Future is a guaranteed income pilot run by the San Francisco Human Services Agency (SFHSA) that provided $1,200 monthly, unrestricted cash payments for 18 months to up to 150 young adults who recently aged out of San Francisco's extended foster care or juvenile probation systems. It was one of seven pilots competitively funded through California's first state-funded Guaranteed Income Pilot Program, administered by the California Department of Social Services, with additional funding from the City and County of San Francisco and the nonprofit Tipping Point Community. Participants could optionally access benefits counseling from Bay Area Legal Aid and case management/financial literacy coaching from First Place for Youth. The pilot's enrollment launched in October 2023, with SFHSA stating first payments would begin in November 2023, and it is being evaluated locally by Chapin Hall and statewide by the Urban Institute and UC Berkeley.

Benin

GBESSOKE (Programme de Filets de Protection Sociale Productifs) is Benin's flagship national productive safety-net program, run by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Microfinance with the National Social Protection Agency (ANPS). It gives regular cash transfers plus productive grants to households certified as living in extreme poverty in Benin's Single Social Registry. The government began disbursing payments to a first pilot cohort of 20,621 households (85% women-led) across 12 communes in September 2025, paying roughly 10,000 FCFA/month for nine months plus two 50,000 FCFA productive grants. It is funded by a $100 million World Bank/IDA loan and an estimated $128 million from the Government of Benin, and aims to progressively expand to 150,000 extremely poor households (about one million people) across all 77 communes by 2027. Funds are sent electronically via secure SIM cards issued to beneficiaries.

United States

GI 305 is a Miami-Dade County nonprofit, co-founded in 2023 by Madison Paez and Jandrick Castro, that runs Miami-Dade's first guaranteed income program. Since April 2024 it has disbursed $650/month in unconditional cash to residents and workers of gentrifying neighborhoods (Allapattah, Liberty City, Little Haiti, Little Havana, Overtown, Wynwood) at high risk of climate-driven displacement. The program is seeded by private donations and uses a rolling-cohort model, adding participants as funds are raised rather than a single fixed yearly cohort. GI 305 publishes quarterly reports on its website tracking disbursements and impact.

Malawi

GiveDirectly, in partnership with the Canva Foundation, ran a basic-income pilot delivering unconditional monthly cash transfers of approximately $50 for 12 months to 12,800 adults in the Khongoni area of Lilongwe Rural district, Malawi. Launched in March 2022 with a $10 million Canva-backed budget, transfers were sized to lift recipients above the extreme poverty line and were paid via mobile money. The pilot also tested and compared three recipient-targeting methods (mobile-phone usage data, geographic/community targeting, and proxy means testing) to inform GiveDirectly's larger-scale cash programs. As of GiveDirectly's current program listing, this specific pilot has concluded and is classified as a past program, superseded by larger district-scale lump-sum transfer programs (e.g., Poverty Eradication II) in Malawi.

Uganda

GiveDirectly is a US-based nonprofit that sends unconditional cash directly to people living in extreme poverty. In Uganda it has partnered with the national government since 2013, reaching 116,000+ people across 13 districts with $93M+ delivered via mobile money. Current active Uganda programs are large one-time lump-sum transfers for poverty relief in the Karamoja sub-region, disaster relief in the Mount Elgon region, and a 'Cash+' livelihoods program for refugees and host communities in Kiryandongo. GiveDirectly's own website lists its recurring monthly 'Basic Income' guarantee (~$40/month) as running only in Kenya, Malawi, and Mozambique — Uganda is not included in that list. This record catalogues GiveDirectly's Uganda cash-transfer operations under the seed label 'Basic Income Program,' pending confirmation that label is the intended fit (see research_notes).

Global

GoodDollar is an open-source, blockchain-based universal basic income (UBI) protocol that lets anyone with a smartphone claim free G$ tokens after verifying their unique identity. It is developed and promoted by Good Labs, a Cayman Islands-registered foundation company, and governed on-chain by the GoodDAO community. Funding comes from DeFi yield generated on crypto reserves staked by corporate and community supporters (founding sponsor eToro since 2019, and XDC Network via a $900K partnership in October 2025) rather than direct cash donations to recipients. As of October 2025, more than 910,000 people across 210 countries had signed up, claiming small daily amounts of G$ pooled and divided among all verified claimants. The protocol runs on Ethereum, Celo, Fuse and now XDC Network, with roughly two-thirds of users from emerging-market economies.

United States

UpTogether, in partnership with the Boston Ujima Project, is described (per unverified program materials) as investing cash over 12 months in Black community leaders and organizers who do unpaid or under-recognized work sustaining Greater Boston communities. UpTogether serves as managing organization and distribution partner. Cited funding partners/affiliations include Boston Ujima Project, Oak Foundation, and New Venture Fund. Unlike most guaranteed income pilots, eligibility is based on community leadership/organizing activity rather than household income or need. Despite extensive research, no primary-source page from either organization could be located confirming program details.

United States

Growing Strong is a guaranteed income pilot run by Win (Women in Need), New York City's largest provider of shelter for homeless families, providing unconditional monthly cash transfers to mothers with children under age 2 living in Win's central Brooklyn shelters. Launched in May 2024 and privately funded, the program gives 100 families $1,417 per month for 24 months via GiveCard prepaid debit cards, paired with voluntary weekly peer support from formerly homeless mothers. The program was designed in partnership with Vanderbilt University, The Samuels Group, and NYC's Center for Innovation through Data Intelligence (CIDI), with Vanderbilt professor Beth Shinn leading a five-year research study comparing participants to a control group of other Win shelter families.

United States

Guaranteed Basic Income for Survivors of Firearm Violence is a feasibility study led by the Philadelphia Department of Public Health's (PDPH) Hospital-Based Violence Intervention Program (HVIP) Coalition. It provides $500 per month for six months to a convenience sample of 50 firearm-violence survivors recruited from Philadelphia's six Level One trauma centers immediately after their injury. The pilot aims to help survivors meet basic needs and improve engagement in HVIP-recommended recovery and healing services. The Mayor's Fund for Philadelphia serves as fiscal sponsor, disbursing roughly $150,000 in participant payments through a contracted vendor, funded by the City of Philadelphia.

United States

GBI2 is the second phase of Howard County's guaranteed income pilot, led by the Community Action Council of Howard County (CAC) in partnership with Howard County Government. It provides 25 eligible families with $500/month in unrestricted cash for 12 months, plus an additional $500/month deposited into a savings account released in July 2027 upon completion of a financial literacy program. It builds on GBI1 (20 families, $1,000/month, no savings component) launched in 2025. The program is publicly funded by Howard County Government and administered by CAC.

United States

Guaranteed Care Income San Francisco was a one-year pilot (June 2024-2025) that gave 10 low-income single mothers in San Francisco -- including several sex workers -- an unconditional $2,000 monthly cash payment in recognition of their unpaid caregiving labor. It was launched by the In Defense of Prostitute Women's Safety Project (a project of the US PROStitutes Collective) with support from the San Francisco Department on the Status of Women, and community partners Global Women's Strike and Women of Color/GWS; it was fiscally sponsored by Women in Dialogue. The pilot specifically targeted mothers at risk of criminalization and/or losing custody of their children to the child welfare system. Social Policy Research Associates conducted a qualitative evaluation finding improved economic stability, health, caregiving capacity and personal safety, with some participants able to reduce or leave sex work.

United States

The Guaranteed Income Financial Treatment Trial (GIFTT), also published in the academic literature as the GIFT Trial, is a randomized controlled trial pairing oncology financial navigation with guaranteed income for low-income cancer patients in active treatment. Humanity Forward Foundation administers the guaranteed income payments and benefits counseling, while the University of Pennsylvania's School of Social Policy and Practice (Center for Guaranteed Income Research) recruits participants and conducts the evaluation. The trial operates under a cooperative agreement with the Social Security Administration, which waives certain SSI income and resource rules so participants can receive cash assistance without jeopardizing existing benefits. The guaranteed income payments are funded by the One Family Foundation/Social Impact Fund and the Independence Blue Cross Foundation. Treatment sites include the Abramson Cancer Center at Penn Medicine and the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson Health, with Children's Hospital of Philadelphia also listed as a partner.

United States

Guaranteed Income for Artists is a guaranteed income pilot launched in April 2021 by the nonprofit Springboard for the Arts, providing $500 unrestricted monthly cash payments to 25 artists and culture workers in the Frogtown and Rondo neighborhoods of St. Paul, Minnesota for 18 months. It was created as a 'sidecar' to the City of St. Paul's People's Prosperity Pilot and was funded entirely by private foundations, primarily the McKnight and Bush Foundations. The pilot has since been studied by the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Guaranteed Income Research and expanded into an ongoing multi-year program now supporting 100 Minnesota artists through roughly 2029.

United States

Creatives Rebuild New York (CRNY), fiscally sponsored by Tides Center, ran the Guaranteed Income for Artists program, providing $1,000 monthly no-strings-attached payments for 18 consecutive months to 2,400 artists, culture bearers, and culture makers across New York State from mid-2022 through March 2024. The $125 million CRNY initiative (which also included an Artist Employment Program) was funded primarily by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Stavros Niarchos Foundation. Participants were selected via weighted lottery from roughly 22,000 applicants, with priority given to artists facing structural barriers to financial security. CRNY commissioned a multi-institution research consortium to evaluate program design, implementation, and impact, publishing a process evaluation (Helicon Collaborative) and a seven-brief Impact Study (Indiana University, Appalachian State University, NYU, Washington University in St. Louis, CUNY). The program has concluded; CRNY now channels learnings into advocacy work such as the New York State Cash Alliance.