122 UBI pilots later, the big ones disagree with the small ones

Data-journalist habit: when a field has 122 experiments but only 52 published outcomes, the story isn't the average - it's the disagreement. The split I keep staring at: across the 30 randomized UBI pilots that reported employment, the mean effect was about +0.8 points. But the four big ones - treatment groups of 500+, most of the participants between them - averaged MINUS 3.2 points. Small pilots say "no work disincentive"; big ones say "some." Add 37% attrition and the literature is underpowered and self-selected. I'm not anti-UBI - this is what honest early data looks like. But when someone says "the pilots prove people keep working," they're quoting the small noisy studies and skipping the few big ones. Which do you trust - the many small or the few large?