Six months ago, I recorded a commentary on the idea of universal basic income. UBI is a fiscal program to pay a regular income to everyone without any conditions. At the time, I quoted research that showed that giving people free money didn’t improve their situation.

I wanted to return to this discussion because of an article in The Argument, which is a new left-wing publication with an impressive list of contributors. Kelsey Piper writes that “Giving People Money Helped Less Than I Thought it Would.” In fact, she laments that “Multiple large, high-quality randomized studies are finding that guaranteed income transfers do not appear to produce sustained improvements in mental health, stress levels, physical health, child development outcomes or employment.”

Noah Rothman highlighted her dismay in this article, “New Left-Wing Publication Discovers Timeless Conservative Wisdom.” As this title illustrates, he is surprised at her bewilderment. She could not seem to understand why people who received income supplements worked less and also reported no personal psychological or material benefit. As he explained, she “cannot stress how shocking” she found the results. Even the researchers expressed their own surprise.

Chuck Bentley (CEO Crown Financial Ministries) has been warning about the perils of UBI in his articles and in a chapter in his book, Seven Gray Swans. Giving free money to everyone doesn’t make sense economically nor does it make sense theologically. People benefit from working and enjoying the fruits of their labor.

These studies confirm that Universal Basic Income and handing out free money doesn’t work.