Handing out money without work fails, but Illinois trying it again

A 2024 study showed handing people money they hadn’t worked for hurt them, but Illinois lawmakers are putting $827,272 in tax dollars behind the idea again.

Despite previous experiments failing, Illinois state lawmakers are handing out $827,272 in free money that discourages people from working and ultimately cuts their incomes.

The state’s 2026 budget includes a grant for a guaranteed income program, even though a recent three-year program in Illinois showed participants decided to work less and had less income. From November 2020 to October 2023, a guaranteed income pilot program in northern Illinois, including Chicago, and Texas gave 1,000 recipients $1,000 per month.

The program caused participants to work 3.9 percentage points less, according to research from the National Bureau of Economic Research. Because work is the best pathway out of poverty, program participants are more likely to remain in low-income brackets.

Reducing workforce participation will likely hurt recipients’ children, too. Children who grow up with working adults are more likely to climb the economic ladder, research has shown.

The program also caused participants’ earned income to drop by $1,800. One cause of this was their decision to work one to two fewer hours per week. Other workers in the household also decided to reduce their hours by one to two hours a week.

The research study showed participants did not see an increase in the quality of their employment, degree attainment, or physical or mental health. The primary gains were an increase in leisure time and an increase in “entrepreneurial activities and willingness to take risks due to the transfers.”

The harms are not surprising because these programs have had similar outcomes elsewhere. In Canada, the government of Ontario halted a three-year program after only 15 months because it was expensive and not helping.

Despite these problems, Cook County recently decided to make its own guaranteed income pilot a permanent program with $7.5 million from its 2026 budget proposal.

Rather than spending taxpayer dollars on programs that already have failed in Illinois and elsewhere, elected leaders should focus on increasing job opportunities and expanding the economy. Proven reforms to create more jobs and growth include reducing the state’s occupational licensing burden, removing harmful regulations that stifle growth and ensuring individuals have the skills they need to secure gainful employment by adopting a career-first education system.

Handing a few people money for nothing mainly benefits the politicians giving away what many taxpayers worked to earn.