New UK trials will give people ‘unconditional cash’ to see if it helps lift them out of poverty
King’s College London has announced ‘Cash Lab’ – a series of trials which will test if and how unconditional cash transfers can break the cycle of poverty in the UK and improve life outcomes.
The Cash Lab, which will be based in the School for Government at King’s, will test different approaches to unconditional cash transfers – payments given without conditions on how recipients spend them – across diverse groups in the UK.
The initiative is based on a pattern researchers have observed across more than a decade of studies – that poverty sits at the heart of almost every social challenge, from educational attainment to mental health to homelessness.
“Time and again, we’ve seen the same pattern,” said Hannah Piggott, Deputy Director of the Cash Lab. “The challenges we examine are both caused and worsened by poverty, while simultaneously increasing the likelihood of experiencing it – creating a vicious cycle that demands new approaches.”
The Lab aims to understand not just whether cash transfers work in the UK context, but where, for whom, and how. Results from one of the trials are expected in the coming months.
Unconditional transfers offer potential advantages over traditional conditional welfare programmes: they are simpler and cheaper to administer, restore dignity and agency to recipients, and – because poverty affects so many outcomes – may deliver broad improvements that justify their cost, the researchers said.
However, they acknowledge mixed international evidence and economic concerns about such interventions: a study from the US found cash transfers led to a reduction in employment, while a Finnish study found no effects and a Canadian study found overwhelmingly positive results.
“There is a limit to how much we can learn from other jurisdictions given the complexities of different tax, benefits and welfare systems,” said Professor Michael Sanders, Co-Director of the Lab. “Our mission is to build rigorous UK-based evidence on cash transfers, contributing to a credibility revolution in how we think about alleviating poverty.”
The six trials draw on funding from various sources and test cash interventions delivered in different ways to different populations across the UK.
