The Baldy Center Blog Post 49. 
Blog Author: Claudia B. Villegas Ramos, LLM candidate
Blog Title: Can Guaranteed Income Help America be More Innovative? Reflections on the work of Stephanie Plamondon

On April 04, 2025, The Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy hosted Stephanie Plamondon, Professor of Law, Brigham Young University J. Reuben Clark Law School, who shared with us her exciting book project. Plamondon has a unique background, holding a J.D. (cum laude) from Harvard Law School, a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Utah School of Medicine, and an undergraduate degree in Physics from the University of Prince Edward Island.  She uses insights from social science, psychology, and law to help us understand how public policies targeting poverty can have a positive impact on creativity and innovation. Her main thesis is that giving guaranteed monthly income to low-income families in the U.S. could lead to more and better innovation results.

Right from the start, she differentiates the guaranteed income versus a universal basic income (UBI). Instead of just giving money to everyone, a guaranteed income would allocate federal money to make regular payments only for people who earn below a certain amount. The goal is to provide a safety net, so no one falls into extreme poverty. As such, these payments would gradually decrease as people start earning more.

Why connect guaranteed income to innovation? According to Plamondon, we are missing out on a lot of great ideas because poverty holds people back. She explains that being poor puts a huge mental strain on people. Plamondon cites a Princeton study that found that financial stress could lower someone's thinking ability by the same amount as losing 13 IQ points [1]. In fact, when you are constantly worrying about paying rent or buying groceries, your brain has less energy to think creatively or make long-term plans.

What is even worse is that the negative effects of poverty can be seen in early childhood. Studies show that children who grow up in poverty often experience changes in brain development that can affect their learning, memory, and ability to set goals. These skills are important for creativity and innovation. In this sense, many kids lose their potential before they even have a chance to grow it.

Plamondon also challenges the way we usually define innovation. Most people think of new products or patents when we hear the word “innovation,” but she sees it more broadly: innovation can be anything creative that helps people or society. It could be a new business idea, a medical improvement, a piece of open-source software, or even a smart community project. Her shift in focus means that you do not need to sell something for your innovation to make a real difference.

That is why she believes guaranteed income could open doors for people who are often left out of innovation, like women and people from racial minorities. As we know, these groups face extra barriers to entering fields like science, tech, or business, but very importantly, when they do get involved, they often work on problems that have been ignored. Plamondon gives an example in which a community was concerned about women’s health and thus, with the involvement of healthcare staff, developed a community-led plan to address inequities in access to perinatal care. Therefore, more diversity in innovation areas means new perspectives and a wider range of helpful ideas that reflect an equally diverse society.

Plamondon argues that a guaranteed income is better than giving more grants or funding to specific projects because it is simpler, and it enhances creativity. Without complicated rules or procedures, people can use the money however they need or want, (e.g. paying for childcare, getting more education, or buying time to work on a creative project). As research shows, without these restrictions, people can be more creative.

She also explains that living in a society with large income gaps creates stress, lowers trust, increases anxiety, and makes people focus more on showing status than on solving real problems. Because of that, a guaranteed income policy would reduce inequality and improve the overall environment for creativity and collaboration.

She estimates this policy would likely cost hundreds of billions of dollars a year, but Plamondon explains that we already spend a lot of money dealing with the effects of poverty –effects like healthcare, crime, and loss of productivity–. She ultimately proposes the money comes from those who earn the most, making this policy also about a proposal for a more egalitarian society.

In the end, Plamondon’s idea is about more than economics, it is about fairness and potential. Right now, many people with great ideas never get the chance to use them. By providing a small, steady income to those who need it most, we could unlock that potential, not just to help individuals, but to build a more creative, inclusive, and innovative society for everyone.
 

[1] Anandi Mani et al., Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function.Science, 341, 976-980(2013).DOI:10.1126/science.1238041