An eleven year-long study focusing on a possible link between Alaska’s Permanent Fund Dividend program and the risk of traumatic injury or death discredits the view that recipients use their dividends unwisely.
The study, entitled “Do Cash Transfers Lead to Traumatic Injury or Death?” found no causal link between the Permanent Fund Dividend and an increase in the risk of traumatic injury or death.
A summary of the finding was recently published in the American Journal of Epidemiology and was authored by a team of researchers at New York University, the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) School of Medicine, and included Alaska’s former chief medical officer, Dr. Anne Zink.
As evidence mounts of government fraud, partisan-directed spending, and structural insolvency, Americans are increasingly skeptical of government’s ability to manage their money. People are asking: “Where is the social security savings account my government promised me?”
Cash transfer programs, which provide money directly to citizens in lieu of government intermediaries, are growing in favor. Historically, such programs have faced criticism from those who contend such payments lead to societal harm, that “free money” is used irresponsibly to buy alcohol and drugs which lead to severe injury and death.
In a press release announcing the outcome, NYU sociologist Sarah Cowan, founder and executive director of NYU’s lab that conducted the study, said: “Past research has shown that cash transfers are an effective tool for reducing poverty, but their implementation is often limited by critics who worry about irresponsible spending that can lead to tragedy. Those fears are unfounded. Our long-term study of a state’s population shows no connection between cash transfers and serious injury or death.”
The study focused on the impact of Alaska’s PFD, but did incorporate sensitivity indicators to prove the stability of the model by looking broadly at the impact of holiday-related spending on severe injury nationwide. In Alaska, researchers examined 2009-2019 data on all traumatic injuries treated in local hospitals, and confirmed deaths as reported from Alaska’s vital records.
Alaska’s PFD presented a control group that spans many cultural and socio-economic profiles. The amount of the PFD was considered high enough to have a measurable impact on spending habits. Thus, Alaska’s PFD program was considered ideal for the study.
Dr. Anne Zink, chief medical officer for the State of Alaska from 2019 to 2024 and now a senior fellow at the Yale School of Public Health, says this:
“As a practicing emergency physician, I worried about yearly PFD leading to immediate harm, but as Alaska’s chief medical officer and public health official, I know how important it is to review the data objectively. This study provides the kind of population-level evidence that public health officials and policymakers need when evaluating guaranteed income programs. When looking across the entire state’s population over 11 years, there was no evidence of increased trauma or mortality temporally associated with the PFD cash transfer.”
Alaskans are left wondering: “Who perpetuates the myth of citizen irresponsibility, and why?” One explanation points to those who seek to protect and expand our dependency on government programs. Interestingly, most modern studies, including one from UAA’s Independent Social Economic Research (ISER) have tracked the unparalleled ability of the PFD to lift thousands of Alaska’s poorest out of poverty, and to fuel Alaska’s economy— primarily in rural communities that need it the most. Evidence shows that PFDs are used for college education, rent, and heating fuel. In spite of this evidence, legislators continue to avoid inflation-proofing, cut dividends, and expand social programs instead.
Another notable study, authored by Mariana Amorim, is titled “Socioeconomic Disparities in Parental Spending after Universal Cash Transfers: The Case of the Alaska Dividend,” published in Social Forces in 2021.
Using actual Permanent Fund spending data, Amorim reported that low- and middle-income families actually spent their dividends on kid-focused spending— like education, clothes, recreation, and computers— at much higher rates than high-income recipients. She concluded that the PFD shrinks income gaps where it counts the most: the future of our children.
The NYU authors similarly debunked the rhetoric that Alaska’s annual PFD increases rates of serious injury or death by unnatural causes. These results held true under scrutiny, after examining both urban and rural populations, and a period of one month following payments. “Together, these findings provide strong evidence that narratives about short-term harm from cash payments are unfounded,” the authors conclude.
The media contact for this study is James Devitt, at [email protected] Other authors were NYU Cash Transfer Lab researchers Robert Pickett, Hailie Dono, and Erica Hobby and Byungkyu Lee, an assistant professor in NYU’s Department of Sociology.
Author’s note: History fans should read Thomas Paine’s (yes, the famous colonial author of “Common Sense”) 1797 treatise entitled Agrarian Justice, the first of its kind in America.
