A photo illustration of Sam Altman with images of a couple with a pushchair, houses, and dollar bills behind him.
  • The results of OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's guaranteed-basic-income study are in.
  • Overall spending increased, but most of the extra cash went to food and rent.
  • Recipients experienced decreased financial stress, but that faded over time, the study found.

The results are in for Sam Altman's much-anticipated basic-income study, one of the largest of its kind. The experiment gave low-income participants $1,000 a month for three years, no strings attached.

Recipients put the bulk of their extra spending toward basic needs such as rent, transportation, and food, the study found. They also worked less on average but remained engaged in the workforce and were more deliberate in their job searches compared with a control group.