UBI, or universal basic income, is a form of direct cash assistance to help the most vulnerable get back on their feet. A new study in Denver suggests it works.
This is the only experiment that comes up from Googling Manitoba UBI, and it doesn’t seem to match what you say. A study of about 2k people, definitely not the whole population, and this article lists quite a number of positive statements about it.
It was 2500 families and encompassed about 10000 pretty much the whole town in some way and was over 4 years. The place was picked because at that time it was bit remote and somewhat isolated on that external forces would have minimal effect. It was determined the cost economically was far higher than the returns. Productivity did fall which was huge in that if this was instituted over a whole country and the result is less productivity, there is absolutely zero way to pay for it. The main take from the initial 4 year study was productively fell less than predicted but it certainly made live easier for the people getting it.
This was likely the biggest study ever done and the most controlled IMO. It did improve people’s health who recieved this money but that was at the expense of the rest of the country paying for it basically all thing being equal, they would get less health care.
Ubi also is payment to everyone. In these examples it is just payment to low or no income people. That is not ubi but simply welfare. Something that is not a bad thing to provide if there is excessive resources to do so.
In the end the project ran for four years, concluding in 1979, but the data collection lasted for only two years and virtually no analysis was done by project staff. New governments at both federal and provincial levels reflected the changing intellectual and economic climate. Neither the Progressive Conservative government of Joe Clark in Ottawa nor Sterling Lyon’s Tories in Manitoba were interested in continuing the GAI experiments. The fate of the original data—boxes and boxes of paper files on families containing questionnaires related to all aspects of social and economic functioning—was unclear. They were stored in an unpublicized location by the Department of National Health and Welfare. In the end, only the Winnipeg sample, and only the labour market aspects of that sample, was ever made available. The Dauphin data, collected at great expense and some controversy from participants in the first large scale social experiment ever conducted in Canada, were never examined.
This study involved using one small town, Dauphin, as a a test for what happens when everyone in the population qualifies for the basic income. The study ran out of money long before the researchers originally thought it would, and the majority of the data wasn’t analyzed until relatively recently.
The general result found in all the experiments was that secondary earners tended to take some part of the increased family income in the form of more time for household production, particularly staying home with newborns. Effectively, married women used the GAI to finance longer maternity leaves. Tertiary earners, largely adolescent males, reduced their hours of work dramatically, but the largest decreases occurred because they began to enter the workforce later. This delay in taking a first job at an older age suggests that some of these adolescent males might be spending more years in school. The biggest effects, that is, could be seen as either an economic cost in the form of work disincentives or an economic benefit in the form of human capital accumulation.
New mothers and teenagers weren’t required to spend as much time working
Money flowed to Dauphin families from MINCOME between 1974 and 1978. During the experiment, Dauphin students in grade 11 seemed more likely to continue to grade 12 than their rural or urban counterparts, while both before and after the experiment they were less likely than their urban counterparts and not significantly more or less likely than their rural counterparts to complete highschool. Grade 11 enrolments as a percentage of the previous year grade 10 enrolments show a similar pattern.
Highschool graduation rates went up
Overall, the measured impact was larger than one might have expected when only about a third of families qualified for support at any one time and many of the supplements would have been small. …At the very least, the suggestive finding that hospitalization rates among Dauphin subjects fell by 8.5 percent relative to the comparison group is worth examining more closely in an era characterized by concern about the increasing burden of health care costs. In 1978, Canada spent $7.5 billion on hospital costs; in 2010 it was estimated to have spent $55 billion—8.5 percent of which adds up to more than $4.6 billion. While we recognize that one must be careful in generalizing potential health system savings, particularly because we use hospitals differently today than we did in 1978, the potential saving in hospital costs associated with a GAI seems worthy of consideration.
And hospitalization rates went down. There were other effects, like small businesses opening during the period of MINCOME and shutting down after, a possible decline in women under 25 having children, but none of this was evaluated for whether it was worth the money or not.
None of those benefits came close to the cost of the program. They ran it for 4 years and the budget yes ran out of money. Could have ran forever because the rest of the country was paying for it but once initiated productively decreased. Likely would have even decreased further but people knew the free money would eventually end.
How do you pay for a program when the local area taxes don’t cover it particularly when the tax income actually decreases once instituted?
None of those benefits came close to the cost of the program
How do you measure the cost-to-benefit of longer maternity leave? Or higher high school graduation rates? Not everything the government does needs to directly make a profit. Just look at roads for an obvious example of that.
once initiated productively decreased. Likely would have even decreased further but people knew the free money would eventually end.
There was only about a 13% decrease in hours worked for the entire family on average, and most of that was women going back to work after a pregnancy later and teenagers not working (probably so they could keep going to school).
How do you pay for a program when the local area taxes don’t cover it particularly when the tax income actually decreases once instituted?
They tried it on Manitoba Canada. Not just a study. It rather fell flat with the most positive statement being, productivity fell less than expected.
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20200624-canadas-forgotten-universal-basic-income-experiment
This is the only experiment that comes up from Googling Manitoba UBI, and it doesn’t seem to match what you say. A study of about 2k people, definitely not the whole population, and this article lists quite a number of positive statements about it.
It was 2500 families and encompassed about 10000 pretty much the whole town in some way and was over 4 years. The place was picked because at that time it was bit remote and somewhat isolated on that external forces would have minimal effect. It was determined the cost economically was far higher than the returns. Productivity did fall which was huge in that if this was instituted over a whole country and the result is less productivity, there is absolutely zero way to pay for it. The main take from the initial 4 year study was productively fell less than predicted but it certainly made live easier for the people getting it.
This was likely the biggest study ever done and the most controlled IMO. It did improve people’s health who recieved this money but that was at the expense of the rest of the country paying for it basically all thing being equal, they would get less health care.
Ubi also is payment to everyone. In these examples it is just payment to low or no income people. That is not ubi but simply welfare. Something that is not a bad thing to provide if there is excessive resources to do so.
Not quite.
This study involved using one small town, Dauphin, as a a test for what happens when everyone in the population qualifies for the basic income. The study ran out of money long before the researchers originally thought it would, and the majority of the data wasn’t analyzed until relatively recently.
New mothers and teenagers weren’t required to spend as much time working
Highschool graduation rates went up
And hospitalization rates went down. There were other effects, like small businesses opening during the period of MINCOME and shutting down after, a possible decline in women under 25 having children, but none of this was evaluated for whether it was worth the money or not.
None of those benefits came close to the cost of the program. They ran it for 4 years and the budget yes ran out of money. Could have ran forever because the rest of the country was paying for it but once initiated productively decreased. Likely would have even decreased further but people knew the free money would eventually end.
How do you pay for a program when the local area taxes don’t cover it particularly when the tax income actually decreases once instituted?
How do you measure the cost-to-benefit of longer maternity leave? Or higher high school graduation rates? Not everything the government does needs to directly make a profit. Just look at roads for an obvious example of that.
There was only about a 13% decrease in hours worked for the entire family on average, and most of that was women going back to work after a pregnancy later and teenagers not working (probably so they could keep going to school).
It’s not about Canada, but you can always find a way to pay for things if you really want to, even if they’re objectively bad for tax income.