Dylan Matthews: “A new study debunks one of the biggest arguments agains basic income”

Dylan Matthews: “A new study debunks one of the biggest arguments agains basic income”

Trucks transporting PAL boxes. Credit to: Jesse M. Cunha and Giacomo De Giorgi

 

Vox Media, a USA online news outlet looks at a food support program in Mexico aimed at its poorest citizens, as a recent article shows. The program PAL (in Spanish “Programa de Apoyo Alimentario [Food Support Program]”) was first initiated in 2003 and has been closely monitored over the years. This program included, as a part of its roll out, three groups: one receiving in-kind transfers (food), another cash transfers with no strings attached and another still got nothing (control group). Recent findings indicate that there have been absolutely no inflation indicators during or related to the program (in kind or cash groups). Critics have been concerned about basic income programs leading to uncontrollable inflation. In fact, for almost 15 years now participants in the PAL program have enjoyed better nutrition and health outcomes, as well as lower prices in larger centres with greater competition and no inflationary outcomes have been found.

 

More information at:

Jesse M. Cunha and Giacomo De Giorgi, “The price effects of cash versus in-kind transfers”, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Staff Reports, August 2015

Dylan Matthews, “A new study debunks one of the biggest arguments against basic income”, Vox, September 20th 2017

CANADA: New basic income documentary launches crowdfunding campaign

CANADA: New basic income documentary launches crowdfunding campaign

A crowdfunding campaign was just launched for the new documentary, “The Mincome Experiment”. Kreytor, a recent web platform designed for “showcasing, curating and crowdfunding creative work” launched the campaign on May 1st, 2017, only five years after the platform was created by the documentary producer Vincent Santiago, an independent artist from Winnipeg, Manitoba (Canada). Over the last five years Vincent has interviewed experts in the field and gathered information for the documentary.

 

Funds to support the documentary is now officially open at Kreytor’s Mincome project webpage. Also, the launch provides a short video (below) that introduces the documentary, while providing background and context on basic income experiments conducted in Dauphin, Canada, in the 1970’s. Recently, the experimental results from Dauphin have been reported on more extensively, after having been archived for decades.

 

https://vimeo.com/214118425

 

More information at:

Kate MacFarland, “NEW LINK: Basic Income Manitoba website“, Basic Income News, October 27th 2016

Kate MacFarland, “MANITOBA, CANADA: Winnipeg Harvest pushes for basic income“, Basic Income News, April 6th 2016

Wayne Simpson, Greg Mason and Ryan Godwin, “The Manitoba Basic Annual Income Experiment: Lessons Learned 40 Years Later,” Canadian Public Policy, 2017