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The Atlantic: The Netherlands’ Upcoming Money-for-Nothing Experiment

June 21, 2016 — 

As The Atlantic reports:

Between 1974 and 1979, economists in Canada selected residents of two Manitoba towns to be sent monthly checks with no strings attached, for an experimental program. But the Canadian government’s interest in the program faded, and papers on it were eventually packed up into cardboard boxes. In 2009, the University of Manitoba economist Evelyn Forget dug up that data, and recently told Public Radio International that she found the number of hours worked in the two towns involved dropped only by 10 percent—mainly because of reductions in hours by mothers who wanted to stay home with their small children and young boys who had previously been encouraged by their families to leave school early and support themselves, but who could now finish high school.

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