Basinkomst ftw!!

Här är en intressant artikel på engelska om en begränsad variant av basinkomst som prövades under fyra år i den lilla staden Dauphin i Kanada. Försöket var egentligen en stor social framgång, men tystades 1978 ner av en ny politisk majoritet i kombination med ekonomisk recession. Det som hände var att all data som samlats in inte analyserades.

Om det säger artikeln följande:

Meant to last several more years, the program came to a quick halt in 1978 when an economic recession hit Canada. The recession had caused prices to increase 10 per cent each year, so payouts to families under Mincome had increased accordingly.

Trudeau's Liberals, already on the defensive for an overhaul of Canada's employment insurance system, killed the program and withheld any additional money to analyze the data that had been amassed.

En forskare vid namn Evelyn Forget (professor i hälsovetenskaper vid universitetet i regionen Manitoba där Dauphin är situerat) undersökte emellertid saken och säkrade tillgång till informationsmaterialet 2009. Vilka positiva effekter för samhället och individer som försöket gav upphov till kan delvis uttydas genom följande citat från artikeln:

Initially, the Mincome program was conceived as a labour market experiment. The government wanted to know what would happen if everybody in town received a guaranteed income, and specifically, they wanted to know whether people would still work.

It turns out they did.

Only two segments of Dauphin's labour force worked less as a result of Mincome—new mothers and teenagers. Mothers with newborns stopped working because they wanted to stay at home longer with their babies. And teenagers worked less because they weren't under as much pressure to support their families.

The end result was that they spent more time at school and more teenagers graduated. Those who continued to work were given more opportunities to choose what type of work they did.

“People didn't have to take the first job that came along,” says Hikel. “They could wait for something better that suited them.”

For some, it meant the opportunity to land a job to help them get by.

Redan för nära 40 år sedan hade alltså politikerna på fötterna för att genomföra konstruktiva reformer för ett rättvisare och mer jämlikt samhälle där färre går under av ekonomiska skäl. Jag tillåter mig att sucka högt.