Government individuals get free money
There are many advantages to this type of direct money transfer programs:
- homes make good use of money,
- consumption of alcohol, tobacco and drugs is decreasing,
- poverty is declining,
- health improves,
- activity, income, and taxes are increasing.
In short, this “ free ” money acts as a real catalyst for the entire economy of the community concerned.
Allocating money to the poor, although necessary, as the various studies cited in the book show, is not enough. Making this right to a basic free cars for low income families minimum, to a living income universal , whatever one's personal situation, simply because one exists, is one more step to take.
If the experiences are less numerous, they exist but, for obscure reasons, they have too often been carefully archived in the cellars of oblivion. This is the case of the Mincome program that R. Bregman describes to us.
1973, Dauphin, Manitoba, Canada: The Mincome program allocates 1,000 families in the municipality, 30% of the inhabitants, a monthly income without compensation (€ 1,650 for a family of 4 people). The experiment lasted four years, observed from every angle by economists, sociologists and anthropologists. A conservative government came to power and halted without further ado the funding of both the project and the analysis of the results of the experiment. The files stored in 12,000 boxes were doomed to oblivion until in 2004, Evelyn Forget, professor at the University of Manitoba, had the good idea to reopen these boxes and study their contents.
Here are the results of his research:
- Young adults postponed getting married and the birth rate plummeted,
- academic performance improved considerably, students continued their studies longer,
- Working time only decreased by 1% for men and 3% for married women and 5% for single women,
- The number of hospitalizations decreased by 8.5%,
- conjugal violence and mental illnesses faded.
