Unconditional income appears to make poor people work less, according to the research I've recently found from developed countries (Spain, Finland and Italy). As the first study I'll cover notes, developing countries are so poor that unconditional income helps things like health, educational outcomes and psychological well-being, so unconditional UBI for them might be okay, but let's have a look at UBI for developed countries.
In a paper published earlier this year (2023), Barcelona's poor people responded negatively to an unconditional UBI (roughly half the minimum wage of Spain) by having the main recipient be 20% less likely to work, whilst the household receiving the income was 14% less likely to have at least one member working. These negative outcomes persisted at least 6 months after the final UBI payment. This result appeared to be softly affected by care responsibilities of the household (i.e. taking care of children, elderly grandparents etc.) The Employment Effects of Generous and Unconditional Cash Support by Timo Verlaat, Federico Todeschini, Xavier Ramos :: SSRN
A study from Finland (Hamalainenet al. 2022) found there to be no employment effects (or "minor at best") after a year wherein unconditional income was given to a randomized group of 2000 people already on welfare benefits (as opposed the Barcelona's UBI which targeted the neighborhoods with lowest mean average income). It should be noted that this UBI handout was coupled with a "lowered participation tax rate [of] 23 percentage points for full-time employment," in other words a massive tax incentive for people to take up full-time work. Removing Welfare Traps: Employment Responses in the Finnish Basic Income Experiment - American Economic Association (aeaweb.org)
A similar Italian study conducted in Turin (Del Boca, D., Pronzato, C., and Sorrenti, G. (2021), directly compared giving conditional basic income to unconditional basic income, but only to households with children. These conditional income recipients were required to attend "mentoring courses regarding job-seeking and reconciliation between work and family tasks". 1500 people, all already eligible for welfare support and receiving it, were randomly split into three groups: (1) ones to be given conditional basic income, (2) one to be given unconditional basic income, and (3) ones who got nothing (control group). The cash transfer amounts to € 2500–3500, about 75 percent of recipients’ yearly labor income. This Italian study found that fathers assigned to the conditional basic income were 14% more likely to be employed than fathers giving unconditional income or the control group (of no income given). Interestingly, there was zero effect on mothers of any group. Conditional cash transfer programs and household labor supply - ScienceDirect
From the three recent studies covered above, we can see that UBI doesn't appear to work at all if it's given unconditionally, even appearing to have a negative effect on aspects of employment. However, if the UBI is given conditionally with recipients being required to attend things like financial or family/work-life balance mentoring, there appear to be some positive results.
