Sunday, October 21, 2012

give the poor an income and things well be better

This is an interesting experiment, in the mid 70s where the small Canadian town made sure everyone had an minimum income. 


While the experiment was short lived the data should that giving people an income actually had good results. 

 During the GAI experiment, Dauphin had a dramatically lower rate of hospital admissions than similar communities in Manitoba.
 Its high-school dropout rate fell and stayed down for a generation.
 It had fewer accidents, serious injuries, arrests and convictions.
 Consultations for mental illness declined.
 And, contrary to policy-makers’ fears, people in Dauphin did not stop working or reduce their hours to get “free” money from the government.
“In all of the indicators I could find for quality of life, people did better,” Forget says.