The study, published in the journal Social Forces, also found that the additional funding had little impact on child-related expenditures of high-income parents.
For the study, WSU sociologist Mariana Amorim analyzed spending by recipients of the Alaska Permanent Fund payments.
Funded by state oil revenues, the fund is the closest program in the United States to a universal basic income.
The findings contradict a common argument in the U.S. that poor parents cannot be trusted to receive cash to use however they want, said Amorim.
She compared those spending patterns to those of parents in the continental U.S. who did not get the payouts.
“We know that with their normal income, high-income parents do spend a lot on their children,” said Amorim.
“High-income Alaskan parents may be saving a lot of the money from payouts, and that’s why we don’t see spikes in current spending. »