This was sent out to the Futurework list within the last year. The
Dauphin Mincome experiment wasn't cut due to high costs. Trudeau and
Schreyer lost power to the Conservatives at the end of the five years,
but the program efficacy was never evaluated. The point below about the
high cost of prison (compared with the better investment of a basic
income/wage top-up) is a given. In Dauphiin, 1000 families for 5 years
received $17 million. The average annual assistance was $3400 per
family. Surely, Dauphin and the government avoided huge carrying costs
for these people across multiple departments. Families could eat, or eat
a little better, and kids stayed in school longer. Hospital care costs
were way down, and though not specified, policing costs must also have
been reduced because of mitigated stress loads. It was a big boost to
the local economy.
Natalia
http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/dauphins-great-experiment.html
Dauphin's great experiment
Mincome, nearly forgotten child of the '70s, was a noble experiment
By: Lindor Reynolds <mailto:[email protected]>
Posted: 12/3/2009
Dauphin -- Thirty-five years ago, this pretty town surrounded by farm
land and far from big cities was the site of a revolutionary social
experiment.
For five years, Mincome ensured there would be no poverty in Dauphin.
Wages were topped up and the working poor given a boost.
The experiment, a collaboration between Ed Schreyer's provincial NDP and
the Liberal government of Pierre Trudeau, would cost millions before the
plug was pulled.
The program saw one-third of Dauphin's poorest families get monthly cheques.
In 1971, at a federal-provincial conference held in Victoria, Manitoba
expressed interest in being the testing ground for a guaranteed income
project. The Schreyer government applied for funding. In June, 1974,
Mincome was approved.
The program quickly grew from modest origins. The NDP thought it would
cost slightly more than $500,000 and involve somewhere between 300 and
500 families.
The project ultimately cost more than $17 million and helped 1,000 families.
Cheques were issued based on family size and income. That is, the
minimum cheque would presume the recipient had no other source of
income. From there, it was scaled back in proportion to the household's
earnings, but it did not claw back everything the family earned above
the minimum needed to keep body and soul together.
In that way, it differed from standard welfare, or social assistance.
And for that reason, it's fondly remembered in the town that tried it,
because it rewarded initiative and standing on your own two feet,
qualities highly regarded in rural Manitoba, then and now.
The basic minimum income experiment ended when both Schreyer and Trudeau
lost power. In the inflationary times of the early eighties and with the
installation of Conservative governments in both Manitoba and Canada,
Mincome quietly faded away.
No money was spent to study the results of this government-funded utopia.
"Most people have forgotten about it," says Dr. Evelyn Forget, a
researcher at the University of Manitoba. "People were very excited
about it in the social science community but outside of Dauphin no one
really knew about it."
Forget wants to know more. She's getting access to nearly 2000 sealed
boxes kept in Winnipeg's National Archives. She hopes to discover what
sort of impact Mincome had on Dauphin's residents.
"We already know that hospitalizations went down and people stayed in
school longer," she says. "This was a very important social experiment."
Forget believes a guaranteed minimum income is a good idea, one that
gives money directly to those who need it instead of funneling the cash
through top-heavy social programs.
The people who lived in Dauphin in the mid-seventies agree.
^^^^
Thirty-five years ago, Hugh and Doreen Henderson stretched each dollar
until it snapped. He was a school janitor, she stayed at home with their
two kids.
They lived out in the country, raised chickens, grew a lot of their own
food and had no money for luxuries.
Mincome was a blessing from above.
"A couple of people came out and talked to us," says Doreen, 70. "We
filled out forms, they wanted to see our receipts. We got to keep our
family allowance."
It was their children who benefited most.
"You know how kids are," she says. "They like new clothes. They like to
have a few extra things."
Hugh, 72, says he regrets not being able to send his children to
university. His daughter managed on her own.
"If a kid wants an education and he's willing to pay for it, I think the
government should help," he says. "If we'd have had more money, I'd have
loved to pay for university for my kids."
Doreen says the government should establish a similar program for
seniors and young families.
"Give them enough money to raise their kids. People work hard and it's
still not enough," she says. "This isn't welfare. This is making sure
kids have enough to eat."
The Hendersons insist Mincome was not a handout. They still worked
plenty hard, scrimped and weren't spending money on restaurant meals or
fancy clothes.
"They should have kept it," she says. "It made a real difference."
^^^^
Amy Richardson is now 83.
Back in the mid-'70s, she ran the Dauphin Beauty Parlour out of her
home. She and her husband Gordon were raising six children.
He worked for the telephone company but health problems led him to
retire at 53.
There was only so much money a woman could making setting hair.
"It was kind of a slump at that time," says the widow. "When you have
six kids it's hard."
Richardson thinks it was her husband who heard about Mincome and applied.
"It was to bring your income up to where it should be. It was enough to
add some cream to the coffee."
The Richardsons used the extra money on things like school books.
"Everybody was the same so there was no shame," she says.
She was old-school, the way people tend to be when they're living in
tough times. She baked her own bread, canned vegetables and put up jams.
She didn't waste a cent because she didn't have one to waste.
"They really need a school to teach the basics now," she says. "Kids
need to learn how to cook, how to do things from scratch. You could live
on a lot less."
For the Richardson and their six children, Mincome was a way to afford a
few more of the necessities.
^^^^^^
Barbara Livingstone, 83, wanted nothing to do with Mincome.
She moved to Dauphin in 1973, a single mother of one. She was a
housekeeper in a personal care home, earning minimum wage and had no
interest in government handouts.
"A friend had something to do with it. He asked me some questions and
told me I qualified. He urged me to take it. To me it was a form of
welfare."
The decision to accept the cheques was hard on her.
"I was raised on a farm. You don't ask for help. It was sort of like in
our family it was shameful to ask for help.
"To me when a person's working and making a fair wage they should take
care of themselves."
She felt guilty applying for the program.
"Mind you, my friend assured me it wasn't welfare, it was an experiment."
The idea behind the program, she remembers, was to take the money and
spend it in the community.
"It was supposed to be a way to kick-start the economy."
She says the money was a bonus but didn't change her life.
"Most of us didn't have anything much but we got by."
^^^
Rick Zaplitny, 63, was already a chartered accountant when Mincome
began. He didn't qualify for the program, but he supported the idea.
"We always felt the problem with the welfare system is it was punitive.
You made money and they took it away from you.
"It seemed to us that Mincome was for the people who were on that line.
They weren't deadbeats. They needed a bit of a boost."
The money wasn't taxable, something Zaplitny thought was a positive move.
"It's the best program of this sort that I've ever seen. I'm guessing
that the administration was quite stringent. There was monthly
monitoring. It was onerous."
Zaplitny says all that would be easier in the age of computers.
"The concept would work now. I'd be in favor of it. Helping someone have
a decent living wage is hard to argue with."
^^^^
As Forget studies the results of the program, she expects to find the
benefits of a guaranteed minimum income were far-reaching.
Teenagers stayed in school longer because they didn't have to get jobs
to support their families. People could afford medical and dental care.
Stress was down because people didn't have to worry about providing for
their families.
As Zaplitny says, these people weren't deadbeats.
They were no different that the thousands of people in this province who
work and still live at or below the poverty line. They use food banks to
supplement what they buy or go hungry so their children can eat.
Mincome did more than top up the income of the poor. It gave them dignity.
Surely that's an idea worth investing in.
[email protected]
with files from Canwest News Service and Legal Checkpoint
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition December 3, 2009 H1
<http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/dauphins-great-experiment.html>
On 08/05/2012 6:19 AM, Ed Weick wrote:
Thank you for responding, Eleanor. I didn't know that the GAI had
been tried in Manitoba and Segal didn't mention it. What he did say,
however, is that it costs some $240,000 to keep a person in prison for
a year. Providing a family with income of just above the low income
cut-off would be considerably less than that. Indeed, you might be
able to provide a GAI to five or six families for the price of one
prisoner. However, I do appreciate that our present government is
into building prisons and incarceration, not the social well-being of
poor families.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
*From:* Eleanor Glor <mailto:[email protected]>
*To:* [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Sent:* Monday, May 07, 2012 11:16 PM
*Subject:* RE: [Ottawadissenters] RE: [Futurework] Meeting on
social rights issues
Thanks for sharing this, Ed.
Here's my thoughts on your questions:
1.If it made that much sense and could readily be implemented, why
hasn't it been done?
It was done. A demonstration project was run in Manitoba for about
ten years during the 1970s. It was not implemented nationally for
two reasons. (1) It was very costly. (2) During the 1970s the
Canadian and western economies took a dive because of two oil
crises, involving big increases in the price of oil. Since then
there have been cuts in taxes to the wealthy and little increase
in salaries for the middle class, translating into stagnant
government revenues and purchasing power. I can't think of any new
social programs that have been funded since then.
2.Why isn't Segal pushing very hard instead of just making
speeches? I think he is pushing hard but that the current
Conservative government isn't listening to him. I have trouble
imagining a scenario in which the Conservatives would fund a GIA.
If any new money was made available, it would go to the deserving
poor e.g. the mentally ill (the news today does not hold much
promise, though).
Eleanor
*From:*[email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Arthur
Cordell
*Sent:* May-07-12 8:41 PM
*To:* 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION';
[email protected]
*Subject:* [Ottawadissenters] RE: [Futurework] Meeting on social
rights issues
http://www3.sympatico.ca/francislerner/
*BASIC INCOME/Canada*
**
*Note that Sally Lerner who co-hosts FW is a major force in the
basic income discussions in Canada and abroad.*
**
*Arthur*
**
*From:*[email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Ed Weick
*Sent:* Monday, May 07, 2012 7:56 PM
*To:* 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION';
[email protected]
*Subject:* [Futurework] Meeting on social rights issues
I attended a meeting this morning that dealt with whether issues
such as access to food and housing are human rights. The
speakers, Leilani Farha of the Centre for Equality Rights in
Accomodation and Bruce Porter of the Social Rights Advocacy
Centre, argued very strongly that food and housing were indeed
human rights and should be recognized as such. They were followed
by a strongly argued presentation by Senator Hugh Segal (Canadian,
not American, Senate) on the need for a Guaranteed Annual Income,
which, he argued, could easily be provided via the income tax
system. If we had a GAI, Segal argued, we wouldn't have to worry
about public housing, food banks, etc.
All very well, but if it made that much sense and could readily be
implemented, why hasn't it been done? There wasn't time to ask
him that, however, because he had to dash back to Parliament
Hill. Segal is a Conservative, though appointed by Paul Martin, a
Liberal Prime Minister, not Stephen Harper, the current
Conservative P.M. He does, however, carry a lot of political
weight, so why isn't he pushing very hard instead of just making
speeches? Maybe he is, but we can't know it because of the
fog surrounding our government.
Ed
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