11 ms·

The Canadian Mincome Experiment of 1974-79

119 points by tempestn 12y ago

wdewind 12y ago
Not shocking because this is HuffPo, but this isn't a good article, and I suspect it's because Mincome (minimum income) did not really provably work (I'm not saying it didn't work, I'm saying there isn't data showing it did). The article is filled with anecdotes of people who appreciated having extra money given to them by the government (shocking). The only time it actually get's close to examining the big picture is here: In 2011, Forget released a paper distilling how Mincome affected people’s health using census data. She found overall hospitalization rates (for accidents, injuries, and mental health diagnoses) dropped in the group who received basic income supplements. AFAICT it did not examine whether or not this made the Mincome project "worth it." So there's nothing here really, or maybe there is, but not in this article.
- _delirium 12y ago
  I agree; this was a pretty disappointing article. It doesn't add much information beyond just the bare fact of pointing out that the Mincome experiment took place, colored with some anecdotes. Even the short Wikipedia article is more informative: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome
- WestCoastJustin 12y ago
  This seems to come up now and again, so there is actually many articles about this topic floating around. Wikipedia has a pretty good overview [1, 2], for something little more in-depth check out the University of Manitoba's TOWN WITH NO POVERTY report [3], even Al Jazeera actually has a nice piece with interview from several recipients [4]. If you search Google there is countless good pieces about this experiment [5, 6, ..]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaranteed_Annual_Income http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaranteed_Annual_Income [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome [3] http://public.econ.duke.edu/~erw/197/forget-cea%20%282%29.pdf http://public.econ.duke.edu/~erw/197/forget-cea%20%282%29.pd... [4] http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/8/26/dauphin-canada-cash.html http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/8/26/dauphin-cana... [5] http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/1970s-manitoba-poverty-experiment-called-a-success-1.868562 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/1970s-manitoba-povert... [6] http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/columnists/dauphins-great-experiment.html http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/columnists/dauphins...
  - notahacker 12y ago
    That's kind of the OP's point though: these articles, including the academic one, are all rich in anecdotes and poor in anything resembling hard analysis. We learn that people are warmly nostalgic bout experiments which gave their community more money from outside, that Dauphin residents saw improvements to their general health relative to other areas, which admittedly may have been helped by a relatively new hospital, and that withdrawals from the labour market were small, though people knew the programme was a temporary experiment, the payments weren't that big and labour market conditions were very different then. Major hypothesized downsides to universal BI such as effects on local inflation (of housing costs in particular) weren't recorded as part of the original study. I've always found it strange that Hacker News, a site populated by mathematically-inclined people responsible for all kinds of ingenious micro-optimizations to maximise customer lifetime value by market segment or optimise the ads displayed to demographic X, has so much love for the idea that the optimal formula for distributing benefits intended to tackle poverty is as simple as $WELFARE_BUDGET / $POPULATION_SIZE. Especially based on evidence as thin as these articles
    - ufmace 12y ago
      Woah, wait a second - I hadn't thought of it until I read your "move money from outside", but it sounds like a fundamental part of this scheme that it was financed from outside the region it took place in. IMHO, that makes it basically worthless for any kind of analysis on doing this on a national scale. Getting a ton of money from an outside source dumped into a region will pretty much always improve things for people there. That hardly seems worth analyzing. Exactly what you do with that money is a minor detail compared to the fact that it's coming in from the outside. This allows them to completely ignore the essential factor of how to go about taxing the population to get the money to give to those deemed in need, and what the impacts of those taxes and the mincome scheme as a whole will have on the mindset of people in the region.
      - phaemon 12y ago
        > Getting a ton of money from an outside source dumped into a region will pretty much always improve things for people there. That hardly seems worth analyzing. Does it not? Your statement is completely wrong so it may well be worth analysing. Google "Dutch Disease" for an example. Check out the "McCrone Report" for ways to avoid this happening.
- unchocked 12y ago
  There is something here: that basic income has been tried. I wasn't aware of that, and although there's precious little conclusion to be drawn it is important to know that it has happened.
  - wdewind 12y ago
    That's my point: it hasn't been tried. It was "tried" in a hyper localized economy, temporarily, without proper data being recorded. For all intents and purposes we still know nothing.
pervycreeper 12y ago
There may be a good case to be made for a minimum basic income (portmanteaus notwithstanding), but one is not to be found in this article.
nwah1 12y ago
A basic income without accounting for the Law of Rent cannot create any sustainable solution. That is why a Citizen's Dividend, funded by a Land Value Tax, is necessary.
- 16bytes 12y ago
  For those unversed in economic theory, care to explain why a basic income--analogous to the one presented in the article or otherwise--is not a sustainable solution?
  - ctdonath 12y ago
    The concern is, on the whole, those receiving & relying on a basic income find a right to the fruits of the labors of others, without any incentive toward their own productivity. Many people find that with a little care, they can live nicely on little - and if that little is just given to them, then they can occupy their time just fine with mundane leisure (eating, mating, entertaining) and ongoing demand for more. Why contribute to national productivity when idleness is encouraged & funded? Many will contend that having the basics covered will encourage the poor to be more productive by not limiting their efforts to mere existence (a la "might one take time to learn programming if not obligated to a 16-hour-a-day job just to pay rent & buy food?"). Many contend this is absurd, as those not inclined toward productivity are not going to become inclined without any reason to. Reality is a complex mix of these, the overall expectation being grounded in one's faith (or lack thereof) in human productivity sans motivation. Basic income also risks devaluing money. The purpose of currency is representation of value; if someone is not creating value, their money has no value to represent. Money taken from someone and given to others (taxation for BI distribution) gives workers nothing in exchange for their efforts; money received for zero productivity may be squandered a la "easy come, easy go". Concern is akin to minimum wage: a gallon of gas will always be worth about 20 minutes of clerking at a gas station, regardless of the number placed upon the currency used to pay for the work and buy the gas. Basic income would skew low-number pricing: higher prices may continue to represent greater value accurately, but pricing of mundane goods/services would inflate as those purchasing have done nothing to acquire the currency buying them. Basic needs have a cost to fulfill. Making it easy to fulfill those needs without social contribution reduces overall societal productivity, rewarding idleness and punishing productivity, lowering national GDP. Requiring people to work (true welfare cases aside) encourages productivity, including in work people would rather not do but for need to provide for one's own basic needs. Reverse question is worth asking: how can basic income possibly be sustainable?
sologoub 12y ago
This seems very different from basic income discussed today. What they essentially describe is an expanded need-based assistance program. US provides a tax credit for very low income that essentially results in negative tax. The Swiss referendum called for unconditional payment. To me, the unconditional nature is the preserving factor that incentivizes people to earn more, while knowing they are protected. A needs based system results in fear of losing what little you have. Low income housing in extremely desirable areas works in similar manner and traps people, instead of incentivizing them to seek higher paid employment because that higher pay will make them not qualified for the subsidy, yet not able to afford the area.
- bane 12y ago
  Right, I personally find it exhausting how this experiment keeps getting raised up as the gold standard for basic income policy. Mincome is a terrible data point for basic income advocates. > A needs based system results in fear of losing what little you have. Low income housing in extremely desirable areas works in similar manner and traps people, instead of incentivizing them to seek higher paid employment because that higher pay will make them not qualified for the subsidy, yet not able to afford the area. Ding ding ding! Mincome is not much different than a restructured welfare program, not a basic income program. At best it's a Partial Basic Income scheme, which is more or less what we have as welfare/benefits today. Basic Income programs guarantee a minimum standard of living, which Mincome did not. Mincome guaranteed a below poverty level standard of living, which then required people to continue working. It's just like getting a few dollars per hour raise. If this happened for everybody in the economy, it'd just be called inflation and standards of living would remain about the same after adjustment. To put Mincome into perspective, the amount it paid is about what you get from Social Security (in the U.S.) without retirement savings or investment plans. Ask any retired person living on a fixed income of solely Social Security income how they get on. Island economics are poor predictors for global economic effects. And any workable UBI scheme has to assume two things: 1) Most of the workforce would drop out and enjoy the minimal, but completely free standard of living it affords them. 2) Labor (which provides the input capital for the UBI scheme) thus becomes punitive. Each person working is supporting multiple people who aren't. Rational actors won't do that (exacerbating #1 above), so to get anybody working, there has to be a forcing mechanism to get them into the labor pool.
noarchy 12y ago
I've noticed the number of articles on "mincome" or "basic income" ramping up quite a bit in places like reddit, and to a lesser extent on HN. I don't necessarily have a problem with this, but are there groups actively trying to get this idea out on social media, hence all of the articles that I'm seeing? It may be that the idea is gaining organic momentum, on top of that, but I've been wondering about this of late.
- waterside81 12y ago
  Maybe a bit of both? With income disparity growing, technology supplanting many "blue-collar" jobs, poverty not really being tackled effectively, it's natural for folks to think about alternative means of sustaining our economy.
- samspenc 12y ago
  I'm wondering who will be sponsoring / supporting this mincome? Won't it be coming out of government taxes - and thus a higher tax rate?
  - jedmeyers 12y ago
    I also rarely even see back of a napkin calculations on how much money will be given away, what will be the source of the money, etc.
    - bane 12y ago
      If you see one that doesn't account for labor dropout under a UBI scheme, ignore it. It won't be a realistic model.
      - phaemon 12y ago
        So you keep claiming, but actual trials of mincome/BI/whatever haven't shown a significant dropout of labour. Do you have any evidence for this other than your gut feeling?
blazespin 12y ago
A basic income guaranteed as long as you stay on birth control makes sense to me. Start paying a small amount at puberty. As soon as you have a child you lose access to it until your children are adults. This will work for men once we have reversible sterilization. This would solve so many problems in this world.
- benpbenp 12y ago
  Honest question, what problems do you think this would solve? Is it that you don't want people to have children until they are financially capable of supporting them? It is indeed a grave responsibility to provide for one's offspring while they are still in the brood. But the upside of the situation, even in the unfortunate circumstance where one cannot make such financial provision, is no less than the creation of a brand new, fully conscious member of the human species, capable of experiencing the full wonder and surprise of being, who otherwise would have no chance of ever existing at all. Furthermore, and here I risk delving into platitudes, children are quite literally the future of society. The continued production of children at a healthy clip is absolutely essential to the continuation of all the things we, as humans, value highest. Hence it seems deranged to me to be so afraid of any monetary hardship that one should seek to positively disincentivize childbearing with such a broad and punitive measure. You are tampering with processes of infinite value and you do so at infinite risk. As a smaller, more concrete objection, what about those who are initially of sound bank account, but then fall into hardship sometime after they've commenced in their procreative endeavours? Are they to be punished as well? In light of this possibility, why not take the opposite tack, and instead reward every new human life with a large gift to help pay for the cost of the upbringing?
tokenadult 12y ago
I posted an article about a guaranteed basic income a bit more than a year ago,[1] and my posting of the article was prompted by noticing that other Hacker News participants had commented about such policies before, followed by my reading some articles that summarized Charles Murray's book about a guaranteed basic income. Ideologically, Murray would probably be even more in favor of no government welfare payments at all (but ask him directly for his current view), but when he wrote his book In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State,[2] Murray's basic argument was that governments are already spending billions and billions of dollars derived from taxpayers for means-tested welfare programs or other income transfer programs that are more complicated administratively than a guaranteed basic income, and a nationwide guaranteed basic income covers everyone at less administrative expense. Murray's book goes into detail about how much a program of guaranteed income for everyone would cost in the United States, and suggests some probable effects that would have on everyone's everyday behavior. I read the book a year or two after it was published. Murray's own summary of his argument[3] and reviews of his book[4] may inform the discussion here. Big public policy proposals are not easy to discuss, but the big public policy proposal of a guaranteed basic income for all is a response to existing policy of supposedly targeted social welfare programs that are just about equally expensive in the benefits they provide, but much more costly to administer. As a matter of personal opinion, I am still thinking about whether or not a basic income guarantee is a good idea, but I definitely want to figure out if spending no more in total for social welfare by directly transferring cash to all citizens would simplify administration of welfare programs and allow more individual choice about how to use the money. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6309882 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6309882 [2] http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0844742236 http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0844742236 [3] http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/focus/pdfs/foc242a.pdf http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/focus/pdfs/foc242a.pdf [4] http://www.aei.org/article/society-and-culture/poverty/in-our-hands-a-plan-to-replace-the-welfare-state-article/ http://www.aei.org/article/society-and-culture/poverty/in-ou... http://www.conallboyle.com/BasicIncomeNewEcon/MurrayReview.pdf http://www.conallboyle.com/BasicIncomeNewEcon/MurrayReview.p... http://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/region_focus/2006/fall/pdf/book_review.pdf http://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/region_focu... http://mises.org/misesreview_detail.aspx?control=296 http://mises.org/misesreview_detail.aspx?control=296

119 points by tempestn 12y ago

Not shocking because this is HuffPo, but this isn't a good article, and I suspect it's because Mincome (minimum income) did not really provably work (I'm not saying it didn't work, I'm saying there isn't data showing it did). The article is filled with anecdotes of people who appreciated having extra money given to them by the government (shocking). The only time it actually get's close to examining the big picture is here: In 2011, Forget released a paper distilling how Mincome affected people’s health using census data. She found overall hospitalization rates (for accidents, injuries, and mental health diagnoses) dropped in the group who received basic income supplements. AFAICT it did not examine whether or not this made the Mincome project "worth it." So there's nothing here really, or maybe there is, but not in this article.

_delirium 12y ago
I agree; this was a pretty disappointing article. It doesn't add much information beyond just the bare fact of pointing out that the Mincome experiment took place, colored with some anecdotes. Even the short Wikipedia article is more informative: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome
WestCoastJustin 12y ago
This seems to come up now and again, so there is actually many articles about this topic floating around. Wikipedia has a pretty good overview [1, 2], for something little more in-depth check out the University of Manitoba's TOWN WITH NO POVERTY report [3], even Al Jazeera actually has a nice piece with interview from several recipients [4]. If you search Google there is countless good pieces about this experiment [5, 6, ..]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaranteed_Annual_Income http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaranteed_Annual_Income [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mincome [3] http://public.econ.duke.edu/~erw/197/forget-cea%20%282%29.pdf http://public.econ.duke.edu/~erw/197/forget-cea%20%282%29.pd... [4] http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/8/26/dauphin-canada-cash.html http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/8/26/dauphin-cana... [5] http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/1970s-manitoba-poverty-experiment-called-a-success-1.868562 http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/1970s-manitoba-povert... [6] http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/columnists/dauphins-great-experiment.html http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/columnists/dauphins...
- notahacker 12y ago
  That's kind of the OP's point though: these articles, including the academic one, are all rich in anecdotes and poor in anything resembling hard analysis. We learn that people are warmly nostalgic bout experiments which gave their community more money from outside, that Dauphin residents saw improvements to their general health relative to other areas, which admittedly may have been helped by a relatively new hospital, and that withdrawals from the labour market were small, though people knew the programme was a temporary experiment, the payments weren't that big and labour market conditions were very different then. Major hypothesized downsides to universal BI such as effects on local inflation (of housing costs in particular) weren't recorded as part of the original study. I've always found it strange that Hacker News, a site populated by mathematically-inclined people responsible for all kinds of ingenious micro-optimizations to maximise customer lifetime value by market segment or optimise the ads displayed to demographic X, has so much love for the idea that the optimal formula for distributing benefits intended to tackle poverty is as simple as $WELFARE_BUDGET / $POPULATION_SIZE. Especially based on evidence as thin as these articles
  - ufmace 12y ago
    Woah, wait a second - I hadn't thought of it until I read your "move money from outside", but it sounds like a fundamental part of this scheme that it was financed from outside the region it took place in. IMHO, that makes it basically worthless for any kind of analysis on doing this on a national scale. Getting a ton of money from an outside source dumped into a region will pretty much always improve things for people there. That hardly seems worth analyzing. Exactly what you do with that money is a minor detail compared to the fact that it's coming in from the outside. This allows them to completely ignore the essential factor of how to go about taxing the population to get the money to give to those deemed in need, and what the impacts of those taxes and the mincome scheme as a whole will have on the mindset of people in the region.
    - phaemon 12y ago
      > Getting a ton of money from an outside source dumped into a region will pretty much always improve things for people there. That hardly seems worth analyzing. Does it not? Your statement is completely wrong so it may well be worth analysing. Google "Dutch Disease" for an example. Check out the "McCrone Report" for ways to avoid this happening.
unchocked 12y ago
There is something here: that basic income has been tried. I wasn't aware of that, and although there's precious little conclusion to be drawn it is important to know that it has happened.
- wdewind 12y ago
  That's my point: it hasn't been tried. It was "tried" in a hyper localized economy, temporarily, without proper data being recorded. For all intents and purposes we still know nothing.

pervycreeper 12y ago

There may be a good case to be made for a minimum basic income (portmanteaus notwithstanding), but one is not to be found in this article.

nwah1 12y ago

A basic income without accounting for the Law of Rent cannot create any sustainable solution. That is why a Citizen's Dividend, funded by a Land Value Tax, is necessary.

16bytes 12y ago
For those unversed in economic theory, care to explain why a basic income--analogous to the one presented in the article or otherwise--is not a sustainable solution?
- ctdonath 12y ago
  The concern is, on the whole, those receiving & relying on a basic income find a right to the fruits of the labors of others, without any incentive toward their own productivity. Many people find that with a little care, they can live nicely on little - and if that little is just given to them, then they can occupy their time just fine with mundane leisure (eating, mating, entertaining) and ongoing demand for more. Why contribute to national productivity when idleness is encouraged & funded? Many will contend that having the basics covered will encourage the poor to be more productive by not limiting their efforts to mere existence (a la "might one take time to learn programming if not obligated to a 16-hour-a-day job just to pay rent & buy food?"). Many contend this is absurd, as those not inclined toward productivity are not going to become inclined without any reason to. Reality is a complex mix of these, the overall expectation being grounded in one's faith (or lack thereof) in human productivity sans motivation. Basic income also risks devaluing money. The purpose of currency is representation of value; if someone is not creating value, their money has no value to represent. Money taken from someone and given to others (taxation for BI distribution) gives workers nothing in exchange for their efforts; money received for zero productivity may be squandered a la "easy come, easy go". Concern is akin to minimum wage: a gallon of gas will always be worth about 20 minutes of clerking at a gas station, regardless of the number placed upon the currency used to pay for the work and buy the gas. Basic income would skew low-number pricing: higher prices may continue to represent greater value accurately, but pricing of mundane goods/services would inflate as those purchasing have done nothing to acquire the currency buying them. Basic needs have a cost to fulfill. Making it easy to fulfill those needs without social contribution reduces overall societal productivity, rewarding idleness and punishing productivity, lowering national GDP. Requiring people to work (true welfare cases aside) encourages productivity, including in work people would rather not do but for need to provide for one's own basic needs. Reverse question is worth asking: how can basic income possibly be sustainable?

sologoub 12y ago

This seems very different from basic income discussed today. What they essentially describe is an expanded need-based assistance program. US provides a tax credit for very low income that essentially results in negative tax. The Swiss referendum called for unconditional payment. To me, the unconditional nature is the preserving factor that incentivizes people to earn more, while knowing they are protected. A needs based system results in fear of losing what little you have. Low income housing in extremely desirable areas works in similar manner and traps people, instead of incentivizing them to seek higher paid employment because that higher pay will make them not qualified for the subsidy, yet not able to afford the area.

bane 12y ago
Right, I personally find it exhausting how this experiment keeps getting raised up as the gold standard for basic income policy. Mincome is a terrible data point for basic income advocates. > A needs based system results in fear of losing what little you have. Low income housing in extremely desirable areas works in similar manner and traps people, instead of incentivizing them to seek higher paid employment because that higher pay will make them not qualified for the subsidy, yet not able to afford the area. Ding ding ding! Mincome is not much different than a restructured welfare program, not a basic income program. At best it's a Partial Basic Income scheme, which is more or less what we have as welfare/benefits today. Basic Income programs guarantee a minimum standard of living, which Mincome did not. Mincome guaranteed a below poverty level standard of living, which then required people to continue working. It's just like getting a few dollars per hour raise. If this happened for everybody in the economy, it'd just be called inflation and standards of living would remain about the same after adjustment. To put Mincome into perspective, the amount it paid is about what you get from Social Security (in the U.S.) without retirement savings or investment plans. Ask any retired person living on a fixed income of solely Social Security income how they get on. Island economics are poor predictors for global economic effects. And any workable UBI scheme has to assume two things: 1) Most of the workforce would drop out and enjoy the minimal, but completely free standard of living it affords them. 2) Labor (which provides the input capital for the UBI scheme) thus becomes punitive. Each person working is supporting multiple people who aren't. Rational actors won't do that (exacerbating #1 above), so to get anybody working, there has to be a forcing mechanism to get them into the labor pool.

noarchy 12y ago

I've noticed the number of articles on "mincome" or "basic income" ramping up quite a bit in places like reddit, and to a lesser extent on HN. I don't necessarily have a problem with this, but are there groups actively trying to get this idea out on social media, hence all of the articles that I'm seeing? It may be that the idea is gaining organic momentum, on top of that, but I've been wondering about this of late.

waterside81 12y ago
Maybe a bit of both? With income disparity growing, technology supplanting many "blue-collar" jobs, poverty not really being tackled effectively, it's natural for folks to think about alternative means of sustaining our economy.
samspenc 12y ago
I'm wondering who will be sponsoring / supporting this mincome? Won't it be coming out of government taxes - and thus a higher tax rate?
- jedmeyers 12y ago
  I also rarely even see back of a napkin calculations on how much money will be given away, what will be the source of the money, etc.
  - bane 12y ago
    If you see one that doesn't account for labor dropout under a UBI scheme, ignore it. It won't be a realistic model.
    - phaemon 12y ago
      So you keep claiming, but actual trials of mincome/BI/whatever haven't shown a significant dropout of labour. Do you have any evidence for this other than your gut feeling?

blazespin 12y ago

A basic income guaranteed as long as you stay on birth control makes sense to me. Start paying a small amount at puberty. As soon as you have a child you lose access to it until your children are adults. This will work for men once we have reversible sterilization. This would solve so many problems in this world.

benpbenp 12y ago
Honest question, what problems do you think this would solve? Is it that you don't want people to have children until they are financially capable of supporting them? It is indeed a grave responsibility to provide for one's offspring while they are still in the brood. But the upside of the situation, even in the unfortunate circumstance where one cannot make such financial provision, is no less than the creation of a brand new, fully conscious member of the human species, capable of experiencing the full wonder and surprise of being, who otherwise would have no chance of ever existing at all. Furthermore, and here I risk delving into platitudes, children are quite literally the future of society. The continued production of children at a healthy clip is absolutely essential to the continuation of all the things we, as humans, value highest. Hence it seems deranged to me to be so afraid of any monetary hardship that one should seek to positively disincentivize childbearing with such a broad and punitive measure. You are tampering with processes of infinite value and you do so at infinite risk. As a smaller, more concrete objection, what about those who are initially of sound bank account, but then fall into hardship sometime after they've commenced in their procreative endeavours? Are they to be punished as well? In light of this possibility, why not take the opposite tack, and instead reward every new human life with a large gift to help pay for the cost of the upbringing?

tokenadult 12y ago

I posted an article about a guaranteed basic income a bit more than a year ago,[1] and my posting of the article was prompted by noticing that other Hacker News participants had commented about such policies before, followed by my reading some articles that summarized Charles Murray's book about a guaranteed basic income. Ideologically, Murray would probably be even more in favor of no government welfare payments at all (but ask him directly for his current view), but when he wrote his book In Our Hands: A Plan to Replace the Welfare State,[2] Murray's basic argument was that governments are already spending billions and billions of dollars derived from taxpayers for means-tested welfare programs or other income transfer programs that are more complicated administratively than a guaranteed basic income, and a nationwide guaranteed basic income covers everyone at less administrative expense. Murray's book goes into detail about how much a program of guaranteed income for everyone would cost in the United States, and suggests some probable effects that would have on everyone's everyday behavior. I read the book a year or two after it was published. Murray's own summary of his argument[3] and reviews of his book[4] may inform the discussion here. Big public policy proposals are not easy to discuss, but the big public policy proposal of a guaranteed basic income for all is a response to existing policy of supposedly targeted social welfare programs that are just about equally expensive in the benefits they provide, but much more costly to administer. As a matter of personal opinion, I am still thinking about whether or not a basic income guarantee is a good idea, but I definitely want to figure out if spending no more in total for social welfare by directly transferring cash to all citizens would simplify administration of welfare programs and allow more individual choice about how to use the money. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6309882 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6309882 [2] http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0844742236 http://www.amazon.com/books/dp/0844742236 [3] http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/focus/pdfs/foc242a.pdf http://www.irp.wisc.edu/publications/focus/pdfs/foc242a.pdf [4] http://www.aei.org/article/society-and-culture/poverty/in-our-hands-a-plan-to-replace-the-welfare-state-article/ http://www.aei.org/article/society-and-culture/poverty/in-ou... http://www.conallboyle.com/BasicIncomeNewEcon/MurrayReview.pdf http://www.conallboyle.com/BasicIncomeNewEcon/MurrayReview.p... http://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/region_focus/2006/fall/pdf/book_review.pdf http://www.richmondfed.org/publications/research/region_focu... http://mises.org/misesreview_detail.aspx?control=296 http://mises.org/misesreview_detail.aspx?control=296