This City Eliminated Poverty, And Nearly Everyone Forgot About It

[ashling]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/30/city-eliminated-poverty-mincome_n_6392126.html

Between 1974 and 1979, residents of a small Manitoba city were selected to be subjects in a project that ensured basic annual incomes for everyone. For five years, monthly checks were delivered to the poorest residents of Dauphin, Manitoba –- no strings attached.

And for five years, poverty was completely eliminated.

The program was dubbed “Mincome” -- a neologism of “minimum income” -- and it was the first of its kind in North America. It stood out from similar American projects at the time because it didn’t shut out seniors and the disabled from qualification.

The project’s original intent was to evaluate if giving checks to the working poor, enough to top-up their incomes to a living wage, would kill people’s motivation to work. It didn’t.

But the Conservative government that took power provincially in 1977 -- and federally in 1979 -- had no interest in implementing the project more widely. Researchers were told to pack up the project’s records into 1,800 boxes and place them in storage.

A final report was never released.

[DAMANgoldberg]

1. K&R

This makes sense for reasons that fiscal conservatives and social liberals should both like. However, the Tea Party, and the current iteration of the Republican Party is neither.

[phantom power]

2. "A final report was never released"

wonder how that happened?