Abstract
Between 1968 and 1980, the US and Canadian governments conducted five Negative Income Tax (NIT) experiments, which continue to have an important impact on the discussion of Basic Income. The first section of the chapter discusses the labour market effects of the NIT experiments of the 1970s; the second section non-labour market effects; and the third section the difficulty of making an overall assessment of NIT or Basic Income on the basis of experimental findings. The fourth section discusses how the public reaction to the release of NIT experimental findings in the 1970s fell victim to spin and oversimplification, and the final section discusses how later reassessments of these experimental findings avoided many of these problems.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Ashenfelter, O. (1978). The labor supply response of wage earners. In J. L. Palmer, & J. A. Pechman (Eds.), Welfare in rural areas. Brookings Institution.
Bishop, J. H. (1979). The general equilibrium impact of alternative antipoverty strategies. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 32(2), 205–223.
Burtless, G. (1986). The work response to a guaranteed income. A survey of experimental evidence. In A. H. Munnell (Ed.), Lessons from the income maintenance experiments (pp. 22–52). Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
Cain, G. C., Nicholson, W., Mallar, C., & Wooldridge, J. (1974). The labor-supply response of married women, husbands present. Journal of Human Resources, 9(2), 201–223.
Calnitsky, D. (2016). ‘More normal than welfare’: The Mincome experiment, stigma, and community experience. Canadian Review of Sociology, 53(1), 26–71.
Forget, E. L. (2011). The town with no poverty: The health effects of a Canadian guaranteed annual income field experiment. Canadian Public Policy, 37(3), 283–305.
Greenberg, D. H. (1983). Some labor market effects of labor supply responses to transfer programs. Social-Economic Planning Sciences, 17(4), 141–151.
Hum, D., & Simpson, W. (1993). Economic response to a guaranteed annual income: Experience from Canada and the United States. Journal of Labor Economics, 11(1, part 2), S263–S296.
Keeley, M. C. (1981). Labor supply and public policy: A Critical Review. Academic Press.
Levine, R., Watts, H., Hollister, R., Williams, W., O’Connor, A., & Widerquist, K. (2005). A retrospective on the Negative Income Tax experiments: Looking back at the most innovative field studies in social policy. In K. Widerquist, M. A. Lewis, & S. Pressman (Eds.), The ethics and economics of the Basic Income Guarantee (pp. 95–106). Ashgate.
Moffitt, R. A. (1979). The labor supply response in the Gary experiment. Journal of Human Resources, 14(4), 477–487.
Rees, A., & Watts, H. W. (1975). An overview of the labor supply results. In J. A. Pechman, & P. M. Timpane (Eds.), Work incentives and income guarantees: The New Jersey negative income tax experiment. Brookings institution.
Robins, P. K., & West, R. (1980a). Program participation and labor-supply response. The Journal of Human Resources, 15(4), 499–523.
Robins, P. K., & West, R. (1980b). Labor-supply response over time. The Journal of Human Resources, 15(4), 524–544.
Robins, P. K. (1985). A comparison of the labor supply findings from the four Negative Income Tax experiments. Journal of Human Resources, 20(4), 567–582.
Torry, M. (2022). Two feasible Basic Income schemes for the UK, and a feasible pilot project for Scotland (CeMPA Working Paper 7/22). Colchester: Centre for Microsimulation and Policy Analysis, University of Essex. https://www.microsimulation.ac.uk/publications/publication-547284/
Watts, H. W., Avery, R., Elesh, D., Horner, D., Lefcowitz, M. J., Mamer, J., Poirier, D. J., Spillerman, S., & Wright, S. (1974). The labor-supply response of husbands. Journal of Human Resources, 9(2), 181–200.
Widerquist, K. (2005). A failure to communicate: What (if anything) can we learn from the Negative Income Tax experiments? The Journal of Socio-Economics, 34(1), 49–81.
Widerquist, K. (2018). A critical analysis of Basic Income experiments for researchers, policymakers, and citizens. Palgrave Macmillan.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Widerquist, K. (2023). The Negative Income Tax Experiments of the 1970s. In: Torry, M. (eds) The Palgrave International Handbook of Basic Income. Exploring the Basic Income Guarantee. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41001-7_16
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-41001-7_16
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-41000-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-41001-7
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceEconomics and Finance (R0)