Kudos and caution around basic income test

The Ontario government’s announcement that it will run a three-year pilot program testing basic income in three Ontario cities, including Hamilton, is good news. It’s good news for the province, good news for the cities involved — the others are Thunder Bay and Lindsay — and good news for the families who will receive a basic income of about $17,000 a year.

First, some history and context. The idea of basic income has been around for five centuries. It’s not new. Author and statesman Thomas Moore floated the idea in the 16th century. It’s also not a creature of the utopian left, as critics charge. Basic income has support, and detractors, across the political spectrum. American conservative Milton Friedman saw it as a way to eliminate the ‘welfare state’ in the early ’60s. John Kenneth Galbraith, celebrated liberal thinker, saw it as a way to end poverty. Richard Nixon wanted to try it. A real-life test ran in Dauphin, Manitoba, in the ’70s, with encouraging results including decreased hospital admissions, improved mental health and education outcomes. It’s being tested in Sweden and California among a dozen or so other jurisdictions.

And now, thanks to the Wynne government, it will be tested in Ontario. It makes sense for basic income to be tested in a city like Hamilton with its entrenched systemic poverty issues, and also with strong and collaborative community networks to help with monitoring, evaluation and assistance.

So there is really nothing to dislike about the pilot project. But there are some issues that need to be kept in mind. It’s a small sample — just 4,000 households across the province. That may be problematic when it comes time to do measurement and statistical analysis. The small sample also means it will be difficult, if not impossible, to accurately measure community benefit.

If, for example, there are 1,000 Hamilton households taking part, it will be easy enough to track and report the impact on the lives of the people in those households. Health factors, education, community engagement, overall prosperity — all those things can be monitored and reported. But the impact on their neighbourhoods (they won’t all be from a single area) or the city will be small and hard to quantify.

That’s not an inconsiderable shortcoming, but it’s also not reason to dismiss the project’s value. If basic income proponents are right and the benefits echo the outcome of the ’70s Mincome experiment (as the Manitoba test was called), this could literally mark the first step on a road to reforming Ontario’s outdated and inadequate support systems. If the pilot doesn’t show that, the learning will still be valuable. But this mustn’t be seen as a panacea, as an excuse for the government to do nothing else. Social assistance rates are still ridiculously outdated. People enduring the current inequities shouldn’t have to wait for three years for action.

Howard Elliott