About

What We Do

The Center for Guaranteed Income Research (CGIR) was established in 2020 at the School of Social Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania to develop a common body of knowledge on unconditional cash-transfers.

At CGIR, leading academics and professionals in the space guide pilot guaranteed income programs and oversee their research planning and implementation processes. CGIR is headed by two Founding Directors; Dr. Amy Castro, an Assistant Professor of Social Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania, and Dr. Stacia West, who serves as a faculty fellow at the University of Pennsylvania in addition to her primary appointment as an Associate Professor at the University of Tennessee.

CGIR conducts applied cash-transfer studies and pilot designs that add to the empirical scholarship on cash, economic mobility, poverty, and narrative change. Our investigations build on the existing literature of cash-transfers, as well as the evaluation practices and lessons learned from our prior research on guaranteed income and the gender and racial wealth gap.

Our Methods

CGIR’s research approach primarily utilizes mixed-methods in concert with community-based organizations and government stakeholders. Our experiments range from Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) and quasi-experimental designs, to emergent qualitative and text-based methods of data collection that match design to community context. Accordingly, CGIR provides cash-transfer programs with technical assistance on sampling decisions, recruitment and retention mechanisms, and data collection activities.

All of our research is anchored in Durr’s (1993) question, “what moves policy sentiment?” To that end, we are committed to public science that challenges dominant narratives on poverty, deservedness, and economic mobility through a variety of methods such as multi-site ethnography, politically-purposive sampling, and data visualization.

Our Dashboards feature pilot-level filters, such that individuals can view and compare information and get a detailed look at our interrogations.

Learn more about our approach through our Learning Agenda.