Basic Income in a Small Town: Findings on Crime, Labor Market Participation, and Stigma

• In Event: 127 - Section on Inequality, Poverty and Mobility Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Paper Session: Table 13. Policy and Income

Abstract

This paper is part of a dissertation examining the impact of an understudied quasi-experiment from the late 1970s called the Manitoba Basic Annual Income Experiment, or Mincome. For three years, participants in the program were able to access guaranteed incomes equivalent to $18,950 for a family of four. While Mincome took place in three sites, I focus on the “saturation” site located in the town of Dauphin, Manitoba, where all town residents were eligible for payments.

What would happen to a town if poverty were eliminated? A number of key aspects of the experiment remain unexplored. This paper summarizes the program and presents some provisional empirical findings. First, in contrast to the steadily increasing crime rates elsewhere, violent and property crime in Dauphin declined throughout the Mincome period and afterward returned to its trend. Second, while some groups of workers reduced labor market participation, there is no major decline at the town-level. Finally, subjective assessments of stigma in Mincome and traditional welfare participants suggest that relative to welfare Mincome was not perceived as degrading and invasive. Contrary to welfare, Mincome was seen as “more normal” and helpful “for everybody”, not just the very poor. I argue that by blurring lines of demarcation between low-wage workers, unemployed workers, and social assistance recipients, basic income reduces barriers to forging solidarities across social categories. This analysis places the erosion of stigma at the explanatory core of the association between the universality of a program and its resilience.

Authors

• David Calnitsky, University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Jonathan Pechman Latner, University of Wisconsin-Madison