The Guaranteed Annual Income: An Appraisal

Abstract

In the past few years, Americans have become increasingly dis? satisfied with the absurd spectacle of millions of their fellow citizens living in poverty while the majority pursues quite comfortable exis? tence. The current hodgepodge of welfare measures that fail to provide for many of the neediest of our poor and recognition of the demeaning features of the means test have stimulated interest in new approaches to the poverty problem. The idea that all Americans should be guaran? teed minimum income, as matter of right, is becoming increasingly acceptable and accepted. Early last summer more than 1,200 economists from 150 different colleges and universities signed petition calling for the introduction of negative income tax as the next logical step in the fight against poverty.1 The idea of negative income tax is basically simple. Individuals and families with incomes less than some predetermined standard would be entitled to receive payments from the government, instead of paying taxes to the government as do the majority of our population. It would be direct, relatively simple way to guarantee to family some minimum annual income. Interest in the proposal is not confined to the universi? ties; many prominent businessmen also favor this approach.2 Indeed, we are told that a plurality of the three hundred men who sit on Dun's Review's Presidents' Panel . . . propose just such tax.3 In December of 1966, the Chamber of Commerce of the United States sponsored National Symposium on Guaranteed Income. In the past two years, four important federal commissions have expressed interest in the concept of guaranteed minimum income for all Americans.4 President Johnson, in January, 1968, appointed Presidential commission to study and evaluate our entire welfare system, including the various guaranteed income alternatives to the existing programs. A subcommittee of the Joint Economic Committee, under the chairmanship of Representative Martha W. Griffiths, is enquiring into programs and proposals for minimum income maintenance in the United States.5 It is proposed in this paper to examine some of the better known of these proposals, to indicate what they hope to achieve, to point out their similarities and differences, and finally to evaluate them in the light of the aims and objectives of our Association.