Michael Tanner:
Suppose there was a way to abolish most of the edifice of the modern welfare state, virtually eliminating the bureaucracy that supports it, and still lift people out of poverty. Shouldn’t we jump at it? Maybe. Maybe not.
On June 5, Swiss voters will go to the polls to decide whether to eliminate many of the nation’s social-welfare programs and replace them with a guaranteed national income for all citizens. Not long after the Swiss vote, Finland will embark on a similar though partial experiment, replacing welfare benefits with a guaranteed income for both national and regional sample populations. In the Netherlands, at least four cities, Utrecht, Tilberg, Groningen, and Wageningen, are in the process of designing their own experiments. And in Canada, the latest provincial budget in Ontario promised to work with researchers this year to come up with a design for a pilot program. Great Britain is also actively debating the concept.
Most conservatives and libertarians in the United States would dismiss the idea of a guaranteed national income (GNI) out of hand. Typical European socialism, would be the reaction. The fevered brainchild of Bernie Sanders.
Actually, though, free-market thinkers from F. A. Hayek and Robert Nozick to Milton Friedman and Charles Murray have long been open to some form of GNI.
Instead of tinkering around the edges of the welfare state, trimming a billion dollars here, adding a work requirement there, why not simply abolish the entire thing? Get rid of welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, housing assistance, unemployment insurance, and all the rest. Murray would even throw in Medicare and Social Security. Replace it all with a simple cash grant to every American whose income falls below the stipulated level, and then leave the recipients alone to manage their own lives free from government interference.
Such a program would be simpler and far more transparent than the hodgepodge of existing anti-poverty programs. The federal government alone, for instance, currently funds more than 100 separate anti-poverty programs, overseen by nine different cabinet departments and six independent agencies. With different, often contradictory, eligibility levels, work requirements, and other restrictions, our current welfare system is a nightmare of unaccountability that fails to effectively help people transition out of these programs and escape poverty.
A GNI would also treat poor people as adults, expecting them to budget and manage their money like everyone else. Currently, most welfare programs parcel out payments, not to the poor themselves, but to those who provide services to the poor, such as landlords or health-care providers. But shouldn’t the poor decide for themselves how much of their income should be allocated to rent or food or education or transportation? Perhaps they may even choose to save more or invest in learning new skills that will help them earn more in the future. You can’t expect the poor to behave responsibly if they are never given any responsibility.
Moreover, giving the poor responsibility for managing their own lives will mean more choices and opportunities. That, in turn, will break up geographic concentrations of poverty that can isolate the poor from the rest of society and reinforce the worst aspects of the poverty culture. And, by taking the money away from the special interests that support the welfare industry, it would break up the coalitions that inevitably push for greater spending.
A GNI would also provide far better incentives when it comes to work, marriage, and savings. Because current welfare benefits are phased out as income increases, they in effect create high marginal tax rates that can discourage work or marriage. Studies have shown that a person on welfare who takes a job can lose as much as 95 cents out of every dollar he earns, through taxes and forgone benefits. Poor people, by and large, are not lazy, but they also aren’t stupid. If they can’t earn more through work than from welfare, many will choose to remain on welfare. In contrast, a guaranteed national income would not penalize someone who left welfare for work.