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| From here Dauphin, Manitoba, Canada |
Population Change and the Lifecourse:
The Town with No Poverty: Health Effects of Guaranteed Annual Income
This is the untold story of "Dauphin, a rural Manitoba town" and a guaranteed annual income (GAI) experiment in the 1970's by the Canadian government. The results have hardly been analysed. This is from an analysis about health effects.
"We see a larger impact of a GAI on Dauphin than expected, because even though not all families qualified for a supplement, the impacts of the GAI extended beyond qualifying families. This is due to social interaction: changes in behaviour of those who receive the supplement influence those who do not, reinforcing the direct effects of the GAI. A good example of this effect is the influence of grade 11 students on their peers to continue education.
The most suggestive result of this study is the fall of hospitalization rates by 8.5 percent in Dauphin relative to the comparison group, specifically, a reduction in hospitalization rates for accidents, injuries, and mental health problems. Considering that in 2010, Canada spent $55 billion on hospital costs--8.5 percent of which is about $4.6 billion-- these potentially immense savings make a GAI worthy of policy consideration."
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