A failure to communicate: What (if anything) can we learn from the negative income tax experiments?

Abstract

The U.S. and Canadian governments conducted five negative income tax experiments between 1968 and 1980. The labor market findings of these experiments were an advance for understanding the effects of a basic income guarantee, but their conclusiveness is often overstated. A review of nonacademic articles on the experiments reveals poor understanding of the results. One often overlooked cause of this misinterpretation was the failure of researchers to make clear that the experiments could not estimate the demand response and therefore could not estimate the market response to the program. Although the evidence does not amount to an overwhelming case either for or against the basic income guarantee, some important conclusions can be drawn, if they are drawn carefully.

Full text

A Failure to Communicate:
What (if Anything) Can we Learn From the Negative Income Tax Experiments?
Karl Widerquist*
Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford University
erscheint in: Journal of Socio-Economics (JSE), 2004 (i.E.)
Abstract
The U.S. and Canadian governments conducted five negative income tax experiments
between 1968 and 1980. The labor market findings of these experiments were an advance for
understanding the effects of a basic income guarantee, but their conclusiveness is often
overstated. A review of nonacademic articles on the experiments reveals poor understanding of
the results. One often overlooked cause of this misinterpretation was the failure of researchers to
make clear that the experiments could not estimate the demand response and therefore could not
estimate the market response to the program. Although the evidence does not amount to an
overwhelming case either for or against the basic income guarantee, some important conclusions
can be drawn, if they are drawn carefully.
JEL Codes: I3, J2, and J3
Keywords: basic income, negative income tax, experiment, redistribution
* Thanks to: Philippe Van Parijs, Jim Bryan, and Marc-André Pigeon for help with this draft and to Michael
Grossman, Robert Haveman, Robert Moffitt, David Greenberg, Robinson Hollister, Allan Ostergren, and the
Institute for Socio-Economic Studies for help gathering the sources. Thanks to Harold Watts, David Levine, Walter
Williams, and to everyone else who participated in the discussion of this paper at the first USBIG Congress.
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Between 1968 and 1980, the U.S. Government conducted four negative income tax
experiments, and the Canadian government conducted one. The results of these experiments are
extremely important to growing debate today about the basic income guarantee (BIG). Although
the modern basic income guarantee discussion tends to focus on the basic income (BI) variant of
the proposal rather than on the negative income tax (NIT) variant tested in the experiments, the
two are similar enough that any conclusive findings from the experiments is of great value for
the current discussion.1 Although the NIT experiments had significant limitations, they yielded
results that are extremely important to the current debate and that must be understood properly.
This article reviews those results and clears up common misconceptions about them.
More than 200 scholarly articles on these experiments have been published in journals
and books (see Bibliography B for an extensive list). Most of these articles were written in the
1970s and ’80s, but a few continue to come out today (O’Connor, 2001; Greenberg, Linksz, and
Mandell, 2003, Levine et al, 2004). The debate died down without a clear consensus on what the
results of the experiments implied for policy, and the results were widely misinterpreted in the
popular media (see Bibliography A for a list of nonacademic articles on the experiments). The
experimental results continue to be cited both by supporters and opponents of the redistribution
of income as evidence for the workability or the unworkability of a guaranteed income. The
experimental results seem to be a political Rorschach test in which an observer’s conclusions
reveal more about the observer than about the observed.
1 I use the terms “basic income guarantee” and “guaranteed income” to mean any policy that ensures some minimum
level of income for all citizens. “Basic income” ensures a minimum income by paying everyone regardless of their
private income. The “negative income tax” ensures a minimum income by paying anyone whose private income
slips below a certain level.
2

For example, in 1993, long after the results were in and the initial flurry of articles was
over, Hum and Simpson declared in the Journal of Labor Economics, “Few adverse effects have
been found to date. Those adverse effects found, such as work response, are smaller than would
have been expected without experimentation” (Hum and Simpson, 1993a). But in the same issue,
Anderson and Block (1993) mused about why so many social scientists continue to support the
negative income tax “in the face of an avalanche of negative results” provided by the
experiments. The most important reason for this disagreement is that the general result of the
experiment was what everyone expected: all else equal, the treatment group worked less than the
control group. This agreed; the central question was how much less would the treatment group
work? Along with many other statistics, the experiments provided numerical estimates of that
answer. The estimates required not only quantitative evaluation of their accuracy, but also
qualitative interpretation of their meaning and that inspires widely differing opinions.
Perceptions of the experiments in the media and in the political arena have been confused and
superficial; neither the results nor the disagreements about how to interpret the results were
understood by politicians or the media.
This paper focuses on the labor market findings of the NIT experiments arguing that
although the experiments were an advance for social science and for understanding the effects of
a basic income guarantee, the conclusiveness of the labor-market results is often overstated.
Researchers either presented their research as more conclusive that it was or failed to prevent the
lay audience from making that misperception. One often overlooked cause of this
misinterpretation was the failure of researchers to make clear that the experiments could not
estimate the demand response and therefore could not estimate the market response to an NIT.
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Although the evidence does not amount to an overwhelming case either for or against the basic
income guarantee, some important conclusions can be drawn, if they are drawn carefully.
Part one summarizes the operation of the experiments. Part two discusses the limits of the
experiments for drawing conclusions for a national policy. Part three discusses the labor market
findings of the experiments in light of their limitations. Part four discusses the political and
media perceptions of the experiments. Part five concludes with a summary of the lessons of the
experiments both for the basic income guarantee and for the dissemination of statistical research
to a lay audience.
Part 1: The Experiments
The five experiments conducted in the United States and Canada are known collectively
as “the income maintenance experiments,” “the guaranteed income experiments,” or “the
negative income tax (NIT) experiments.” They began at a time when the elimination of poverty
was the stated goal of the presidential administration, when there was a growing movement for
economic rights, and when many social scientists and policymakers believed that social policy
reform was heading in the direction of a guaranteed income. But by the time all of the results
were available the movement for eliminating poverty had dwindled and the idea of “welfare
reform” was beginning to be associated with dismantling rather than rationalizing the welfare
system.
The NIT experiments were the first large-scale social experiment to use the scientific
method of randomly assigning human subjects into treatment and control groups just as medical
researchers do when testing drugs. Some social scientists have called them, “experiments in how
4

to conduct experiments,” and it is arguable that they had larger influence on future social
experiments than in the examination of the policy they were designed to test.
The primary aim of the NIT experiments was to test the side effects rather than the effects
of a basic income guarantee. The central goal of an income support program is to raise the
welfare of the destitute, and that it can do that is something that does not need to be tested.
Although the effect on poverty of most social policies (AFDC, TANF, EITC, job training,
education, etc.) requires testing, the conclusion that an NIT with a guarantee rate at the poverty
line can eliminate poverty is true by definition.
The effects of the negative income tax on health, homeownership, low-birthweight,
school performance, and other indicators of the well-being of recipients were tested and reported
in many studies (Avrin, 1980; Boumol, 1974; 1977; Bradbury 1978; 1986; Cain 1977; Elesh and
Lefcowitz, 1977; Hall 1980; Hanusheck, 1986; Kaluzny, 1979; Keeley, 1980c; 1980d; Kehrer
and Wolin, 1979; Kerachsky, 1977; Knudsen, Scott, and Shore, 1977; Ladinsky and Wells, 1977;
Lefcowitz and Elesh, 1977; Mallar, 1977; Masters, 1978; Maynard, 1977; Metcalf, 1977a;
Michael, 1978; Middleton and Allen, 1977; Murnane, Maynard, Ohls, 1981; Nicholson, 1977b;
O’Connor, Madden, and Madden, 1979; Ohls, 1980; Poirier, 1977; Pozdena and Johnson, 1980;
Rea 1977; Robins, 1980b; Rossi, 1975; Thoits and Hannan, 1980; Weiss, Hall, and Dong, 1980;
Wooldridge, 1977). Most of these studies show positive effects, even for hard-to-change
variables such as school performance and low birthweight, but discussion of these effects is
beyond the scope of this paper. For an overview of some of these effects see Levine et al (2004).
Another side effect, the effect of the experiments on the divorce rate inspired a large
amount of controversy (Bishop, 1980; Cain 1986; Galligan and Bahr, 1978; Ellwood, 1986;
Groeneveld, Tuma, and Hannan, 1980a; 1980b; 1983; Hannan, Tuma, and Groenveld, 1977;
5

1978; Hum and Choudry, 1992; Tuma, 1986), but these findings are also beyond the scope of
this paper). See Hannan and Tuma (1990) and Cain and Wissoker (1990a; 1990b) for two sides
of this debate.
Table 1 summarizes the basic facts of the five NIT experiments. The first, the New Jersey
Graduated Work Incentive Experiment (sometimes called the New Jersey-Pennsylvania Negative
Income Tax Experiment or simply the New Jersey Experiment), was conducted from 1968 to
1972. The researchers originally planned to conduct the entire experiment in New Jersey, but
they were unable to find enough poor whites there and had to open a second location in Wilkes-
Barre, Pennsylvania to round out a racially representative sample. The treatment group originally
consisted of 1,216 people and dwindled to 983 (due to drop outs) by the conclusion of the
experiment. The sample size consisted of black, white, and Latino, two-parent families with
incomes below 150% of the poverty line, and with a male “head,” who was not approaching
retirement.2 Treatment group recipients received a guaranteed income for three years.
The Rural Income Maintenance Experiment (RIME) was conducted in rural parts of Iowa
and North Carolina from 1970 to 1972. It functioned largely as a rural supplement to the New
Jersey experiment, which focused on an urban population. RIME began with 809 experimental
subjects and finished with 729. The treatment group received a guaranteed income for two years.
Subjects met the same criteria as the New Jersey Experiment except that single-parent, female-
headed households were also included. Few, if any, Latinos were included in the sample. Both
RIME and the New Jersey experiment began under the direction of Office of Economic
2 Husbands were usually the primary income earners in a family, and researchers tended to describe this role with
the status-implying term “head of household.” Women could not be “heads” unless they lived with children and
without a husband.
6

Opportunity (OEO) and were completed by the Department of Heath, Education, and Welfare
when OEO was abolished.
The largest NIT experiment was the Seattle/Denver Income Maintenance Experiment
(SIME/DIME), which had an experimental group of about 4,800 people in the Seattle and
Denver metropolitan areas. The sampled included black, white, and Latino, families with at least
one dependent and incomes below $11,000 for single-parent families and below $13,000 for two
parent families. The experiment began in 1970 and was originally planned to be completed
within six years. Later, researchers obtained approval to extend the experiment for 20 years for a
small group of subjects. This would have extended the project into the early 1990s, but it was
eventually cancelled in 1980, so that a few subjects had a guaranteed income for about 9 years,
during part of which time they were led to believe they would receive it for 20 years.
The Gary Income Maintenance Experiment (which is never abbreviated) was conducted
between 1971 and 1974. Subjects were mostly black, single-parent families living in Gary,
Indiana. The experimental group received a guaranteed income for 3 years. It began with a
sample size of 1,799 families, which (due to a large drop-out rate) fell to 967 by the end of the
experiment.
The Canadian government initiated the Manitoba Basic Annual Income Experiment
(Mincome) in 1975 after most of the U.S. experiments were winding down. The sample included
1,300 urban and rural families in Winnipeg and Dolphin, Manitoba with incomes below
C$13,000 (Canadian) per year. By the time the data collection was completed in 1978, interest in
the guaranteed income was seriously on the wane and the Canadian government cancelled the
project before the data was analyzed. Fortunately, university-based researchers were eventually
7

able to obtain and analyze the data, so that results are available today (Hum and Simpson 1991;
1993a).
Two parameters are central to the design of any guaranteed income. The first is the
guarantee level or the minimum income level (G in Table 1), which is the amount the recipient
receives if she has no private income. Theoretically, the guarantee level can be any number
between zero and per capita GDP. If G is too low, the NIT will not significantly reduce poverty
or increase income security, if it is too high, it will have such strong work disincentive effects
that the program would be unaffordable. The experiments intended to find out whether a
guarantee level sufficient to seriously reduce or even eliminate poverty was feasible. For that
reason guarantee levels between 50% and 150% of the poverty line were tested.
The U.S. experiments all defined the guarantee level relative to the poverty line, testing
nine different guarantee levels: 0.5 (50% of the poverty level) was tested in the New Jersey and
Rural Income Maintenance Experiments. 0.75 was tested in all four of the U.S. experiments. 1.0
(just enough to eliminate official poverty) was tested in all of the U.S. experiments except
SIME/DIME. 1.25 was tested in only in the New Jersey Experiment, and 1.26 and 1.48 were
tested only in SIME/DIME. Mincome, which defined its guarantee level in Canadian dollars
rather than relative to the poverty level, tested guarantee levels of C$3,800, C$4,800, and
C$5,800 per year. These levels were near the poverty line at the time.
The other central parameter of any guaranteed income system is the marginal tax rate (t
in Table 1), also known as the “take-back rate:”3 the rate at which benefits are reduced as the
3 The practical working of the marginal tax rate is slightly different if the guaranteed income is administered as a
basic income rather than as a negative income tax.
8

recipient makes private income.4 In other words, the marginal tax rate is the effective income tax
rate per dollar of private income for recipients of the negative income tax. A higher marginal tax
rate is associated with a lower a overall tax-cost of program5 but also with greater the work-
disincentives, and a greater potential “poverty trap.” A lower marginal tax rate is associated with
a greater redistribution of income towards people with incomes above the poverty line.
Redistribution to this group might be desirable in terms of equity (as a reward for low-wage
workers), but to do so would increase the cost of a program primarily conceived as an anti-
poverty policy.6 For these reasons, it is important to know what kinds of take-back rates are
feasible and the work-disincentive effects of each. The experimenters tested nine different values
of t: 0.3 (30%) was tested in the New Jersey and Rural Experiments. 0.35 was tested only in
Mincome. 0.4 was tested only in Gary. 0.5 was tested in all of the experiments except Gary. 0.6
was tested only in Gary. 0.7 was tested in the New Jersey Experiment, RIME, and SIME/DIME.
0.75 was tested in Mincome. SIME/DIME tested two nonlinear income functions with marginal
tax rates of 0.7 minus 0.025 times income and 0.8 minus 0.025 times income. The effect of these
two nonlinear functions was to impose higher marginal tax rates on lower levels of income and
lower marginal tax rates on higher levels of income.
The use of so many different rates of G and t, reduced the numbers of subjects receiving
each type of treatment, and therefore reduced the statistical reliability of the results for each.
4 Private income could include interest, dividends, capital gains, etc. But for the participants in these experiments it
was overwhelmingly wage income.
5 Higher marginal tax rates could be associated with higher taxes costs if the supply of labor had a very high
elasticity of substitution, but this was not expected and did not prove true in any of the experiments.
6 The basic income movement today puts less stress on the issue of poverty reduction and more stress on broader
equity goals that make the issue of spending money on those already above the poverty line is less important.
9

Some of this tradeoff is worthwhile to allow for testing of a greater variety of potential
parameters, but the experiments might have benefited from more coordinated effort to test a
uniform group of widely spaced parameters.
Table 1 summarizes the configuration of the experiments.
Part 2: What the experiments could and could not measure
Within the context of the work-effort response, there were conceptual questions about
which parameters and which effects deserved most concern. Results were reported for income
and substitution effects of various levels of G and t, but the most discussed statistic was the
simple question of the overall effect of the various treatments on the hours of work of the
average recipient, and so I will focus on that here as well. There were also conceptual questions
about how findings on work hours should be used: were they important because they represented
the shift in the labor supply curve, because they had implications for the tax cost of the program,
or because they had implications for the efficiency cost of the program? Overwhelmingly, the
concern came to be the overall change in work hours and their effect on the tax cost of an NIT.
Economists focused on this issue, even though only the work disincentive effects of the marginal
tax rate (not the guarantee rate) represent a true cost in terms of economic efficiency (Hall,
1986).
The experiments produced many precise and technical estimates for the effect on hours of
work, but what we learned from these estimates is small in comparison to what we simply do not
know about the effects of a national program on work hours. Three obstacles (that make it
difficult to draw conclusions about national policy) can be understood with reference to Figure 1.
First, there was no stated agreement about what level of work disincentive would be considered
10

acceptable. How much of a decrease in H on Figure 1 is too much? Second, there were problems
with the fallacy of composition. That is, how well the response of the treatment group to the
experiment represented the response of a wider population to an actual program. How well does
the experimental shift from A to B represent the true shift from A to B? Third, the experiments
measured the supply response to an NIT, but they were incapable of measuring the demand
response, which made them incapable of determining the market response to an actual program.
How much did the estimated shift from A to B differ from the shift from A to C that would
determine the final effect on hours and costs?
The first two of these problems have been well discussed by the scholars who wrote
about these results, but were not well understood in media reports on the experiments. The third
received only minor discussion by academics and virtually no discussion in the media or in
Congressional testimony. The rest of the section discusses these three problems in more detail.
2.1 The lack of an agreed acceptable level of work-disincentive
Many of the authors who have written on these experiments have complained that there
was no criteria laid down for what decline in work-effort would be considered acceptable.
Although this fact allowed sides could claim that the results vindicated their beliefs, there are
two reasons why this criticism of the experiment is overstated: The experiments did give
conclusive answers to several objective questions, and the goal of the experiments was inquiry;
they were not expected to be a precursor to immediate implementation if work effort declined by
less than a percentage. The NIT was simply a policy that Congress was interested in learning
more about, and in that respect there was no need for a simplistic yes-or-no result.
11

There were, in fact, three objective yes-no questions about the work-effort response that
the experiments answered quite well, all of which are very important to the BIG debate: First,
would a large number of people respond to an NIT by withdrawing entirely from the labor force?
The experiments found no evidence of such behavior. Some of the experimenters said that they
were unable to find even a single instance of labor-market withdrawal (Levine et al
forthcoming). Second, would the work-effort response be large enough to threaten the financial
viability of an NIT? The experiments found no such evidence. Third, would there be any work-
effort response? The experiments found that there was a non-negligible work-effort response.
There is a large range between a negligible work-disincentive and one that is so large that
it makes the experiments unaffordable. Most researchers who worked on the experiments were
not surprised that the results fell into that range, and it simply means that anyone who reads the
results must make a judgment about them. That judgment is a matter of an opinion, about which
people are likely to disagree. Therefore, the experiments gave both sides the ability to judge the
results favorably.
2.2 The fallacy of composition and the representativeness of the experiments
The representativeness of the experimental results was affected both by sampling and by
the extent to which the experiments could replicate an actual policy change.
The experiments did not draw a random sample of data. Only low-income families were
tested; most of the experiments sampled only families with incomes below 150% of the poverty
line. Gary and SIME/DIME sampled higher income participants but only in small numbers.
Because only low-income families were tested, most of the experimental families did not have
the kind of jobs that gave them a reason to stay committed to the labor force. Such families have
12

a greater incentive and a greater ability to withdraw from the labor force than families with better
paying, more secure jobs. This method of drawing the sample does not make the experiments
“wrong” it merely means that they focused on the reaction of the poorest segment of the labor
force, and must be read accordingly. Moffitt (1979b) estimated that the labor supply response of
eligible low-income individuals would be –4.5% but the response of the labor market as a whole
would be only –1.6%. However, it should be noted that a response by higher-income people, if
there is one, has greater effect both for the efficiency cost and the tax cost of an NIT.
Participants were not randomly assigned to treatment groups. In order to reduce the costs
of the experiments, the researchers tended to assign those with higher pretax incomes more
generous programs (higher levels of G and lower t). This strategy enters an important bias into
the estimated responses to these parameters.
Many of the results are not attributable to the NIT per se but to the fact that most of the
NIT plans tested were more generous than the existing welfare programs that the control group
was eligible for (Robins and West, 1980b). Butless (1986) observed that the average tested
program was much larger than anything likely to be introduced and therefore overstated the
work-effort response. The question of whether an NIT system or conditional welfare system or a
similar size would have a larger work disincentive is still unanswered.
Few if any single, childless individuals were sampled. This is the group might have a
larger work-effort response, because (aside from Food Stamps) they were not eligible for any
non-work-based benefits, as parents were at the time.
The experiments measured the short-run response to a temporary change in policy, but
we really want to know the long run response to a permanent change in policy. This problem
could mean that the experiments either overestimated or underestimated the work-disincentive
13

effect. As Harold Watts described it, an experimental plan that recipients know will be in place
for only a few years, is the equivalent of putting leisure time on sale: When laundry soap is on
sale, people buy more of it, and we can expect a similar response when leisure is on sale. People,
who might want to take a few weeks or months off work sometime in the next ten years, might as
well take it while the experiment is going on (Levine et al forthcoming). On the other hand,
because the experiments were only temporary, recipients knew that they had to return to the
workforce eventually, and might have been less likely to drop out for fear of losing work
experience or losing their place in line for promotion. It is questionable whether many of the
recipients had jobs that elicited such loyalty to the labor market, but arguably a permanent NIT
could give workers a disincentive toward building the kind of attachments to the labor force that
might lift them well out of the bottom of the income distribution later in life. The possibilities for
biases in either direction do not necessarily cancel each other out, but they do show that those
who make claims that the long-run effect is certainly larger than the experimental effect (Burless,
1986; Anderson and Block, 1993) are making claims that are not supported by evidence or
theory.
Metcalf (1974), Ashenfelter (1978) and Robins (1984) discussed the problem of limited-
duration experiments and efforts to solve it. The best evidence on this issue provided by the
experiments comes from the SIME/DIME “20-year” recipients. It is unclear whether these
recipients believed the experiment would last for 20 years, and they would have been wise not to,
as it was cancelled after 9 years. These recipients did not behave terribly different from other
experimental group (Robins, 1984), but even if the experiment had gone on for the full 20 years
it could not have estimated everything we want to know about long-term and cultural effects of
an NIT.
14

Other problems included Hawthorne effects, complicated experimental rules, attrition,
and underreporting of income by the experimental group. Hawthorne effects are changes in
behavior that resulting from being watched and/or from trying to influence outcome of an
experiment. Ferber and Hirsch (1978) argued that many participants did not seem to understand
the eligibility rules. Attrition is likely to lead to bias towards exaggerating the value of the work-
disincentive effects because those who worked the least had the most to gain by remaining in the
experiment. Underreporting is important because the control group had no incentive to
misrepresent their private income, while the experimental group did (Greenberg, Moffitt, and
Friedman, 1981). They may also have had a greater ability to get away with underreporting than
they would if an actual policy were in place. Ashenfelter (1986) speculates that underreporting
might have been the main cause of the difference in reported income between the control and
experimental groups, which would greatly bias the results toward over estimation of the work-
disincentive effects.
2.3 The inability of the experiments to measure the demand response
The researchers involved were clearly aware of the absence of a demand response and of
its theoretical importance, but with few exceptions (such as Browning, 1971; and Greenberg,
1983) it received little attention in the literature. To determine the market effect, researchers
would have to know the elasticities both of labor supply (which the experiments estimated) and
of labor demand (which the experiments could not estimate). The following analysis assumes no
unemployment. If unemployed workers replace the work reductions for NIT recipients, the effect
15

of an NIT on total labor hours, output, and the efficiency cost of an NIT will be mitigated, but
the effect on the labor hours of recipients and on the tax cost will not be mitigated.7
Examining the extreme cases reveals the range of possible outcomes. Figure 2 shows the
effects of a completely inelastic demand for labor. In this case, firms need a fixed amount of
workers and will pay whatever they must to get it. If so, no amount of labor-disincentive effect
will cause any long-run decrease in work effort; the entire result of the work-disincentive effect
would be to raise wages; and there would be no equilibrium decline in hours worked and no
efficiency cost. Figure 3 shows that, if the demand for labor is perfectly elastic (if firms will hire
any amount of labor at the going wage, but won’t pay even a cent more for it), the market
equilibrium will be entirely determined by the horizontal shift in the supply of labor just as
measured by the experiments.
The more general results are that the equilibrium level of work effort will be somewhere
between the initial equilibrium (point A) and the horizontal shift in supply (point B), and that the
equilibrium wage will be as high or higher than the initial wage. In other words, the market
equilibrium will be somewhere in the shaded area in Figure 4. Without information on
elasticities, it is impossible to say precisely where in this region the equilibrium would be. Thus,
instead of estimating the equilibrium outcome of a negative income tax, the experiments
estimated the boundary of a region of possible outcomes.
It should be noted that it is theoretically possible for the equilibrium point to be in the
region to the upper left of point B if the labor supply is backward bending. However, backward
bending requires that workers’ demand for goods is so inelastic that a decrease in wages will
cause them to work more hours to maintain their level of consumption. That is quite reasonable
7 See Greenberg (1983) for a more detailed discussion of this issue in the context of unemployment.
16

for someone whose labor is the primary or the only source of income. But if a generous
guaranteed income is in place, a lower wage reduces the portion of income attributable to work.
It becomes unlikely that workers will work more and more to maintain the level of a smaller and
small part of their income. Therefore, it is unlikely that labor supply would backward bend for
workers in the low wage market when a substantial NIT exists. Also, if it did exist it would be
likely to lead to a very large increase in wages as the backward bending supply forced the price
farther up the supply curve.
If a backward bending labor supply is ruled out, the lack of ability of the experiments to
estimate the market response to a guaranteed income has several important effects on the
estimates:
• The reduction in labor hours would be smaller than estimated by the experiments.
• The increase in income of recipients (and therefore) the effect of the program on
poverty would be larger than estimated (via increased wage rates).
• The cost of the program in terms of tax dollars would be smaller than estimated.
• The efficiency loss of the program would be smaller than estimated.
• The increase in wages would create a cost to firms that the experiments could not
estimate.
In other words, the experiments found upper-bound estimates for the decline in hours worked,
lower-bound estimates for the effect of the program on the income of recipients, upper-bound
17

estimates for the cost of the program in terms of tax dollars and efficiency loss, and no estimate
of the cost of the guaranteed income in terms of higher wages.8
Given this inherent limitation of the experiments, there are two reasonable ways to
present results: One is to obtain the best available estimates for the elasticities and simulate the
outcome (Betson, Greenburg, and Kasten, 1980; 1981; Betson and Greenburg, 1983, Greenberg,
1983). The other is to present them was what they were: estimates of the boundaries of a range of
possibilities. Instead, as shown in part 3, demand effects were sometimes ignored and often
treated with a small caveat. When treated with a caveat it was often included on a list of things
that could bias the estimates, such as factors mentioned in 2.2, but few brought attention to the
important difference between those biases and the difference between a point estimate and an
estimate of the boundary of a range.
Part 3: The work-disincentive results of the experiments
Nearly half of the scholarly articles on the negative income tax experiments deal in some
way with empirical results for work incentive effects, and many of those present original
estimates. Table 2 summarizes the findings of several of the studies on the work-effort response
to the NIT experiments, giving the difference in hours worked by the experimental group relative
to the control group in hours per year and in percentage terms. Results are reported for three
categories of workers, husbands, wives, and “single female heads” (SFH).9 Data was also
collected for the work effort of youths, but is omitted from this table in the interest of brevity.10
8 This is not an economic cost, of course. But it is a cost to an interest group that might interest policymakers.
9 Meaning women with children and no husband.
10 Youths tended to have work-effort responses comparable in percentage terms to wives and single mothers. It was
not correlated with an increase in school attendance, but was correlated with an improvement in school performance.
18

The five experiments found a range of work-effort reduction from -0.5% to -9% for husbands,
which corresponds to a reduction of about ½ hour to 4 hours per week, 20 to 130 hours per year,
or 1 to 4 fulltime weeks per year. The three studies averaging the results from the four U.S.
experiments (Robins, 1985; Burtless, 1986; Keeley, 1981) found work reduction effects of 5%,
7% and 7.9% respectively.
The response of wives and single mothers was somewhat larger in terms of hours, and
substantially larger in percentage terms because they tended to work fewer hours to begin with.
Wives reduced their work effort by 0% to 27% and single mothers reduced their work effort by
15% to 30%. These percentages correspond to reductions of about 0 to 166 hours per year. The
labor market response of wives had a much larger range than the other two groups, but this was
usually attributed to the peculiarities of the labor markets in Gary and Winnipeg where
particularly small responses were found.
Robins (1985), Robins and West (1980a; 1980b), and Moffitt (1979a) all clearly present
their findings as the difference between the labor supply of the treatment group and the control
group, which should avoid any confusion with broader labor market findings to anyone who
understands the difference, and one would expect everyone who reads technical articles is likely
to understand. Others added a simple caveat (Keeley et al, 1978a; Moffitt, 1979b), but some
were not as careful to avoid confusion. Orcutt and Orcutt (1968) claimed that the experiments
could produce unbiased estimates of the disincentive effects and earnings effects of an NIT,
when the lack of a demand response clearly makes this impossible (Browning, 1971). Ferber and
Hirsch (1978, p. 1385) referring to the “labor supply response” as the “labor market response”
despite explaining the difference later in the article. Kelly and Singer (1971) write, “No
experiment paper should be complete without mention of possible response bias,” but do not
19

mention the experiment’s inability to measure demand response as a source of bias. West
(1980b, 642) mentions three ways NIT can affect wages without mentioning the demand
response. Most of these slips are small, but the omission of demand is more significant when
researchers attempt to carry the results over to the cost of a national program.
Table 3 reports some of the labor market findings other than the simple difference
between the hours worked by the treatment and control groups. Robins, Tuma, and Yeager
(1980) and Tuma and Robins (1980) found that the percentages are much larger if labor response
is considered in terms of the increase in the length of spells our of work or the rate at which
people who aren’t working return to employment. These results largely reflect the fact that the
reduction in labor hours was not primarily caused by workers reducing their hours of work each
week but by remaining nonemployed longer if and when they became nonemployed. Increased
periods of nonemployment might have an efficiency benefit if they lead to better matches
between workers and firms.
Several studies estimating the additional tax cost caused by the work-effort response
found widely divergent results. Rees and Watts (1976) estimated it would add 5% to 10% to the
tax cost of the program. Ashenfelter (1978) estimated that the cost of the program without labor
market effects would be 78% of cost with labor market effects, which is equivalent to saying that
the reduction in work effort would increase the tax cost of the program by 28%. Keeley et al
(1978a) estimated that the labor supply response would account for 23% to 55% of total program
costs (equivalent to an increase of 30% to 122%). Burtless (1986) estimated that work
disincentive would nearly triple the tax cost of the program. All of these studies neglect the
demand response, implicitly assuming that demand is completely elastic. Rees and Watts’s
conclusion is that the costs are small and so apparently don’t think it necessary to say that a
20

demand response might make the costs even smaller. Only Keeley et al (1978) explicitly make
the assumption of perfectly elastic demand. They admit that this reduces the accuracy of the
results, and justify the assumption by speculating that employers could easily replace NIT
recipients with workers who are not covered by the program.
Most of the studies that did include a demand response used data from the NIT
experiments to examine particular changes in policy such as Carter’s Program for Better Jobs
and Income (Betson, Greenberg, and Kasten, 1980a; 1980b; Betson and Greenberg, 1983), and
so are not very useful for correcting cost estimates of an NIT for demand responses. Only
Greenberg (1983) applied a microsimulation model with a demand effect to the cost of an NIT as
examined in the experiments. He found that a wage response could slightly mitigate the effect on
hours and costs but the general pattern remained in which a dollar spent on poverty reduction
raises the incomes of the poor by less than a dollar,11 but his results are tentative because they
depended on assumptions about the elasticity of demand, the level of unemployment and the
substitutability between NIT recipients and other workers (Greenberg, 1983). Bishop (1979)
used a general equilibrium framework to examine the impact of several antipoverty programs
including NIT on efficiency. The focus on efficiency rather than tax cost means that his results
are not directly comparable to the others, but he finds that the NIT would produce a demand
response that would increase wages and therefore it would reduce both the efficiency loss and
the tax cost of the program. Unfortunately there do not seem to be any articles employing a
demand response in otherwise comparable models that generate comparable estimates of tax
cost, hours worked, efficiency lost, and impact on inequality.
11 Personal correspondence.
21

These results are not extremely divergent or controversial, and they are not terribly
conclusive on the issue of whether the government should introduce a basic income guarantee,
but they can be spun to make an apparently strong case either for or against it. Most of the
scholarly works did not seem to consciously spin the results with a few exceptions such as
Burtless (1986) and Anderson and Block (1993). Although Burtless displays knowledge of the
difficult issues involve in the experiments, he betrays an effort to nudge the conclusion in
direction. He declares a 7% decline in work effort to be “large.” He discusses various biases in
the estimation of labor supply that point in both directions, but hastily concludes that the balance
the labor supply effects are overestimated, and fails to recognize the significance of
underreporting bias (Ashenfelter, 1986). He does not mention that his cost estimate is
substantially larger than any of the others, and he does not mention that it is biased by the
omission of a demand response. Anderson and Block (1993) seem to use Burtless (1986) as their
primary source, but make a one-sided representation even of his account, omitting many of his
caveats and clarifications. They go farther than Burtless by attributing poverty to a lifestyle
“choice” on the part of recipients because so many people in poverty do not work, ignoring such
a basic economic concept as unemployment. They ignore the demand side of the labor market,
failing to note that poverty also represents the “choice” of employers in the low-wage sector who
pay wages that leave workers in poverty even if they work fulltime. Anderson and Block’s
normative and positive arguments are both one-sided and therefore not very valuable.
Despite these two exceptions, the presentation of the data in the official reports and in
most published works was good science and not political spin. But as part 4 shows, once that
data made its way into the public arena, it was spun anyway.
22

Part 4: Political and Media Perceptions of the Experiments
Hopefully, parts 2 and 3 have demonstrated that the findings of the NIT experiments are
far more complex, subtle, and ambiguous than one might be led to believe by findings such as an
X% decline in hours worked. But as this section shows, the complexity of the results was largely
lost on politicians and members of the media to whom the findings were reported. Bibliography
A contains a survey of about 50 articles from the popular media on the experiments.
The experiments gained significant attention in the press only twice. In 1970–1972, when
Nixon’s Family Assistance Plan (FAP) was under debate in Congress, and in 1977–1978 when
Carter’s Program for Better Jobs and Income (PBJI) was under consideration. Both plans had
elements of a negative income tax; neither was a pure guaranteed income, although FAP was
considerably closer to it than PBJI. In 1970, the first experiment had only been under way for
two years and researchers believed that they were at least three years away from being able to
produce meaningful results, but at the insistence of the administration and some members of
Congress, the researchers released preliminary reports showing no evidence of any work
disincentive effect.12 Some other members of Congress (rightly) could not believe the result, and
commissioned a review of the results from an independent auditor that concluded the results
were “premature,” which was just what the researchers had initially warned.
Results of the fourth and largest experiment, SIME/DIME, were released while Congress
was debating PBJI. Dozens of technical reports with large amounts of data were simplified down
to two statements: It decreased work effort and it supposedly increased divorce. The small size of
12 The reason that the preliminary reports so greatly underestimated the work-effort reduction was probably that
workers took several years to adjust their behavior to the new policy (see Robins and West, 1980b).
23

the work disincentive effect that pleased so many of the researchers hardly drew any attention.
Never mind that everyone going into the experiments agreed that there would be some work
disincentive effect; members of Congress were appalled; and columnists across the country
responded with a chorus of negative editorials decrying the guaranteed income and ridiculing the
government for spending millions of dollars to find out whether people work less if you pay
them not to work.
The United Press International (1977) simply got the facts wrong saying that the
SIME/DIME study showed that “adults might abandon efforts to find work.” The UPI apparently
did not understand the difference between a decline in work hours while continuing to work, and
abandoning the labor market. The Rocky Mountain News claimed that the NIT “saps the
recipients’ desire to work.” Jones (1977) writing for the Seattle Times presented a relatively
well-rounded understanding of the results, but despite this, simply concluded that the existence
of a decline in work effort was enough to “cast doubt” on the plan. Similarly Rich (1978,
November 18) implied that evidence showing the NIT “might cause recipients to work less” is
enough to disqualify the program from consideration. Raspberry (1978) declared the experiments
a failure simply because people worked less.
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan who had written a book in support of the guaranteed
income a few years early and who had been one of the architects of FAP, recanted his support for
the guaranteed income as a result of the SIME/DIME findings. He is a sociologist and would be
expected to have a sophisticated understanding of statistical data, but he implied in a letter to
William F. Buckley later published by the National Review that the mere existence of a work
disincentive effect was an important factor in his recantation. He stated, “But were we wrong
about a guaranteed Income! Seemingly it is calamitous. It increases family dissolution by some
24

70 percent, decreases work, etc. Such is now the state of the science, and it seems to me we are
honor bound to abide by it for the moment.” He held Congressional hearings on the results in
November of 1978 to discuss the evidence. Although a large amount of good information was
presented (U.S. Senate, 1978), media reports and politicians’ comments on the experiments did
not betray a real understanding of the findings
Headlines such as “Income Plan Linked to Less Work,” and “Guaranteed Income Against
Work Ethic” appeared in newspapers following the hearings. The Knight News Service (1978)
quoted Jodie Allen of the Labor Department commenting on Spiegelman’s cost estimates saying,
“It could easily turn out that the government might spend billions of dollars on benefit payments
and have little effect on the families’ incomes. Instead, most of the (government) expenditures
would offset reductions in earnings.” Only a few exceptions such as Carl Rowan for the
Washington Star (1978) considered that it might be acceptable for people working in bad jobs to
work less, but he could not figure out why the government would spend so much money to find
out whether people work less when you pay them to stay home.
Spiegelman, one of the directors of SIME/DIME, defended the experiments in the
Washington Star (1978), saying that the experiments provided much needed costs estimates that
demonstrated the feasibility of the NIT. He said that the decline in work effort was not dramatic,
and could not understand why so many commentators drew such different conclusions than the
experimenters. Demokovich (1978) was one of the few popular writers who considered the
work-effort reduction to be small, but the more common reaction was given by Senator Bill
Armstrong of Colorado Citing only that a work disincentive effect existed, Armstrong said the
experiment was, “An acknowledge failure. Let’s admit it, learn from it, and move on”
(Brimberg, 1980).
25

What we had there was a failure to communicate. The scientists who presented the data
were not entirely to blame for this misunderstanding, as Burtless (1986) remarked,
“Policymakers and policy analysts … seem far more impressed by our certainty that the
efficiency price of redistribution is positive than they are by the equally persuasive evidence that
the price is small.” It may be impossible to communicate such complexities to an audience
interested in sound bytes or bottom lines, but social scientists have a responsibility to do a better
job than we did in this instance. The understanding of the NIT experiments displayed in the
popular press was superficial and obviously the result of spin. Few commentators kept figures
like 5% to 7% in perspective. None of the articles in the popular media that I was able to find
betrayed any understanding that the experiments measured only the horizontal shift in the labor
supply function. None seemed to understand the elementary economic principle that a change in
supply necessitates a demand response that can greatly affect the equilibrium outcome.
Part 5: Conclusion
It would be very easy to spin on the results in either direction. A positive spin would
focus on the size of the work disincentive effects. The experiments clearly contradicted two of
the most common arguments against a basic income guarantee: The experiments found no
evidence that a negative income tax would cause some segment of the population to withdraw
from the labor force, and the experiments found no evidence that the supply response would
increase the cost of the program to the point that it would be unaffordable (even ignoring the
mitigating demand response). Certainly, some level of G would make an NIT untenably, but the
results implied that a guarantee level as high as 150% of the official poverty level would be well
26

within the bounds of financial feasibility. Also, the experiments predicted that the full labor
market response in the work hours of primary income earners would fall into a range of about 0–
5% or 0–7% and where in that range it fell would depend on the elasticity of demand for labor.
The reduction in work hours could be called “small,” and it could be mentioned that it would
have the side benefit of increasing wages, further reducing poverty and inequality.
A negative spin would require a focus on three facts: First, there was a statistically
significant work disincentive effect, allowing willing laypersons to draw the fallacious
conclusion that there was therefore a substantively significant work disincentive effect. Second,
work reductions of 5% to 7% among primary earners in two-parent families and reductions of up
to 27% for other earners could be called “large.” Third, the work disincentive increased the cost
of the program over what it would have been if work hours were unaffected by the NIT.
Estimates of the added cost vary from 10% to 200%, and it is not difficult to focus on the larger
estimates.
Even if the public had been made to understand more of the complexities of results, as
long as there is a significant political block believing that any work disincentive is unacceptable,
the NIT experiments were bound to give ammunition to NIT opponents. To that extent it was a
mistake for any guaranteed income supporters to agree to the experiments in the first place.
Robert Reischauer (1986) asked what would have happened if the introduction of Social Security
had been preceded by a similar experiment? It would certainly have shown that people saved less
for their retirement, retired sooner than they otherwise would have, and relied less on traditional
feelings of family responsibility for elders. Such findings would have challenged prevailing
norms and would have given considerable ammunition to Social Security opponents. But there is
a danger in focusing too much on the strategic value of the experiments to supporters and
27

opponents. There is more to scientific inquiry than political advantage. The experiments were not
a propaganda device, and although what we learned form them was tentative and limited, it is
worth knowing.
Why was the limitation of a missing demand response treated so lightly? Perhaps, as a
general trait, scientists like to focus on the results of their research, not its limitations. Perhaps,
those presenting the data might have assumed this fact was too obvious to be bothered with
among social scientists or too difficult to be dealt with by a lay audience. Perhaps, opponents
didn’t want to bring it up because it waters down their argument that the work disincentive is
“large” and the costs are “high.” Perhaps, supporters didn’t want to bring it up because it is
easier to make the case that the work-disincentive is “small” than to make a case that a work
disincentive would have a desirable effect on wages. Using the small argument requires only an
objective look at empirical evidence—if one can objectively define small. But using the
desirability argument requires not only empirical data that the experiments could not produce,
but also a much more complex normative argument. It affronts those who want to keep wages
low to keep profits high and those who espouse the extreme version of the work ethic stating that
everyone without property must at all times even at poverty wages.
To those who believe that low-wage workers need more power in the labor market, the
NIT experiments demonstrated the feasibility of a desirable program. To those who believe all
work-disincentives are bad, the experiments demonstrated the undesirability of a well-meaning
program. These normative issues separate supporters from opponents of the basic income
guarantee, and therefore, the NIT experiments, as long as they are discussed, will always mean
different things to different people. Either side can spin the results, but that’s not how science
should be used. It is better to understand that the NIT experiments were able to shed a small
28

amount of light on the positive issues that affect this normative debate. They we able to indicate
only that a basic income guarantee is financially feasible at a cost of certain side effects that
people with differing political beliefs may take to be desirable or disastrous. To claim more
would be to overstate the evidence.
29

Bibliography A: A few Nonacademic Articles on the NIT Experiments
Andersen, M., 1978. Welfare Reform on the Same Old Rocks. New York Times, November 27.
Associated Press, 1978. Social Experiment Finds. New Orleans Time-Picayune, May 19.
Bartlett, C., 1978. A New Hitch for Welfare Reform. Washington Star. November 20.
Brimberg, J., 1980. Income Security Project Flounders; Halt Sought: Guaranteed Income
Program Fails. Denver Post, February 14.
Business Week, 1976. Positive Values of the Negative Income Tax. Business Week, November.
Demkovich, L.E., 1978. Good News and Bad News For Welfare Reform. National Journal.
December 30, 1978.
Demkovich, L.E., 1980. It May Be a Race Against the Clock For Welfare Reform Package in
1980. National Journal, January 26.
Greene, L.M., 1979. Letter On Income Maintenance Experiments: Too Soon to Jump to
Conclusions. New York Times, February 20.
Hum, D., Simpson, W., 2001. A Guaranteed Annual Income? From Mincome to the
Millennium. Policy Options / Options Politiques, January – February.
Jones, M., 1970. 35 Families Join Income Plan; More to Sign Up Next Month. Seattle Times,
November 28
Jones, M., 1978. $60 Million, 8-Year Social Experiment: Test Casts Doubt on Income Plan.
Seattle Times, May 18.
Kamien, A., 1977. HEW Study Links Guaranteed Income to Family Breakup. Rocky Mountain
News, November 14.
Kershaw, D., 1972. A Negative-Income-Tax Experiment. Scientific American, October.
Knight News Service, 1978. Next Welfare Plan: Lower Cost, Benefits. San Francisco
Examiner, November 16.
Lambro, D., 1979. Easy Money at HEW. Conservative Digest, April. Reprinted from Policy
Review.
Lenkowsky, L., 1979. Welfare Reform and the Liberals. Commentary, March.
Moffitt, R.A., 1981. The Negative Income Tax: Would it discourage work? Monthly Labor
Review, April.
Morris, M., 1970. “2,200 City Families Will Get $5.1 Million Income Aid.” Seattle Post
Intelligencer, June 16.
Moynihan, D.P., 1978. Interview. Some Negative Evidence About the Negative Income Tax.
Fortune Magazine, December 4.
Moynihan, D.P., 1978. Letter to William F. Buckley. National Review, September 29.
Nelson, D., 1970. Annual Income Experiment Set. Skagit Valley Herald, Mt. Vernon, WA.
March 9.
New York Times Editorial Board, 1979. Scare Talk About Welfare Reform. New York Times,
February 13.
New York Times News Service, 1977. Welfare ‘Sweetener’ Blunts Criticism. Washington Star,
Aug. 7.
New York Times. 1978. Moynihan Says Recent Studies Raise Doubts About ‘Negative Income
Tax’ Proposals. New York Times, November 16.
Newsweek, 1978. Welfare: A Surprising Test. Newsweek, November 27.
Ostrum, C., 1978. To Each According to His Need? Seattle Sun, March 22
Pine, Art, 1978. The Negative Side of Negative Tax. Washington Post, May 12.
30

Raspberry, W., 1978. A Failed Experiment in Guaranteed Income. Washington Post, November
20.
Reinhold, R., 1979. Test in Seattle Challenges Minimum-Income Plan. New York Times,
February 5.
Rich, S., 1978. “Income Plan Linked to Less Work: Marriages Break Up, Study Also Finds.
Washington Post, November 16.
Rich, S., 1978. Moynihan Sees $6 Billion Increase in Welfare Cost Under Revision Plans.
Washington Post, November 18.
Rich, S., 1978. Welfare Plan Linked to Family Splits. The Washington Post, May 2.
Rocky Mountain News Editorial Board, 1978. A Valuable Test. Rocky Mountain News,
November 29.
Rowan, C.T., 1978. A Little Common Sense in Place of Money. Washington Star, December 6.
Sacramento Bee Editorial Board, 1978. Welfare and Families. Sacramento Bee, March 18.
Samuelson, P.A., 1977. Welfare Reform. Newsweek, August 29.
Schiller, B.R., 1978. When Welfare Families Know their Rights. The Wall Street Journal, July
11.
Seattle Times, 1971. 1,000 Families to Receive Income Aid. Seattle Times, February 3.
Socioeconomic Newsletter, 1977. Califano Relies on HEW Tests to Bolster Welfare Plan.
SocioEconomic Newsletter, July.
SocioEconomic Newsletter, 1978. Flare-Up on Negative Income Tax. SocioEconomic
Newsletter, January.
Spiegelman, R.G., 1978. Letter to the Editor. Washington Star, December 15.
Spiegelman, R.G., 1979. Letter to the Editor. SocioEconomic Newsletter, March.
Steiger, P.E., 1977. Divorce Linked to Income Gains in Welfare Study. Los Angeles Times,
November 4.
U.S. News and World Report, 1977. ABC's of Carter Welfare Plan—And the Changes It Would
Bring. U.S. News and World Report, August 22.
U.S. Senate, 1978. Welfare Research and Experimentation: Hearings before the Subcommittee
on Public Assistance of the Committee on Finance, United States Senate. Washington: U.S.
Government Printing Office.
United Press International, 1977. Guaranteed Income Against Work Ethic. Seattle Daily Journal
Commerce, November 16.
United Press International, 1978. Study Raises Questions on Welfare Reform. Washington Star.
November 16.
31

Bibliography B: Published Academic Articles and Books on the NIT Experiments
This bibliography attempts to be as comprehensive as possible, including published books and
articles that focus largely on the NIT experiments. I hope it will serve as a resource for others
researching this topic.13
Aaron, H. J., Todd, J., 1979. The Use of Income Maintenance Experiment Findings in Public
Policy, 1977-1978. Industrial Relations Research Association, 31st Annual Proceedings, Madison,
Wisconsin, 46--56.
Aaron, H. Jr., 1975. Cautionary Notes on the Experiment. Pechman, J.A., Timpane, P.M. (Eds.),
Work Incentives and Income Guarantees: the New Jersey negative income tax experiment.
Washington, DC: Brookings institution, pp. 88--110.
Adams, C., 1980. A Reappraisal of the Work Incentive Aspects of Welfare Reform,” Social
Service Review 54 (4): 521--536.
Anderson, G.M., Block, W., 1993. Economic Response to a Guaranteed Annual Income:
Experience from Canada and the United States: Comment. Journal of Labor Economics 11 (1),
S348--S363.
Anderson, M., 1978. Welfare: The Political Economy of Welfare Reform in the United States.
Sanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press.
Ashenfelter, O., 1978. The Labor Supply Response of Wage Earners, in: Palmer, J.L., Pechman,
J.A. (eds.), Welfare in Rural Areas. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
Ashenfelter, O., 1983. Determining Participation in Income-tested Social Programs. Journal of
the American Statistical Association 78, applications section: 517--525.
Ashenfelter, O., 1986. Discussion (of ‘The Work Response to a Guaranteed Income. A Survey of
Experimental Evidence’), In: Munnell A.H. (ed.), Lessons from the Income Maintenance
Experiments. Boston: Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
Ashenfelter, O., Plant, W.M., 1990. Nonparametric Estimates of the Labor-Supply Effects of
Negative Income Tax Programs. Journal of Labor Economics 8, no 1. pt. 2: S396--S415.
Atkinson, T., Cutt J., Stevenson, H.M., 1973. Public Policy Research and the Guaranteed Annual
Income: A Design for the Experimental Evaluation of Income Maintenance Policies in Canada.
Toronto: York University.
13 I’m sure I missed some. There is some repetition of papers published both as journal articles and as book chapters,
and there was some subjectivity in the judgment of what constitutes “largely” and “published”—my apologies for
any omissions. In addition to the published articles, there are at least 200 more unpublished memorandums, reports,
discussion papers, and other unpublished works on the experiments as well. Many (but not all) of the unpublished
articles were simply early version of later published works. For a bibliography including many of the unpublished
articles on the NIT experiments, see the working paper version of this article: USBIG Discussion Paper No. 38, “A
Failure to Communication: The Labor Market Findings of the Negative Income Tax Experiments and their Effects
on Policy and Public Opinion” at http://www.usbig.net.
32

AuClaire, P.A., 1977. Informing Social Policy: The Limits of Experimentation. Sociological
Practice 2 (1): 24--37.
Avery, R., 1977. Effects of Welfare ‘bias’ on family earnings response. In: Watts, H.W., Rees A.
(eds.), The New Jersey Income-Maintenance Experiment Volume III: The Impact on
Expenditures, Health, and Social Behavior, and the Quality of the Evidence. New York:
Academic Press: pp. 303--322.
Avery, R., Watts, H.W., 1977. The Application of an Error Component Model to Experimental
Panel Data. In: Watts, H.W., Rees A. (eds.), The New Jersey Income-Maintenance Experiment
Volume II: Labor-Supply Responses. New York: Academic Press, pp. 383--392.
Avrin, Marcy E., 1980. Utilization of Subsidized Housing. In: Robins, P.K., Spiegelman, R.G.,
Weiner, S., Bell, J.G. (eds.), A Guaranteed Annual Income: Evidence from a Social Experiment.
New York: Academic Press.
Barth, M.C., Orr, L.L., Palmer, J.L., 1975. Policy Implications: A Positive View. In: Pechman,
J.A., P. Timpane, P.M. (eds.), Work Incentives and Income Guarantees: the New Jersey negative
income tax experiment. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
Bawden, D. Lee, 1977b. Income and Work Response of Wives and Dependents. In: Bawden,
D.L., Harrar, W.S. (eds.), Final Report of The Rural Income Maintenance Experiment, Madison,
WI: Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin.
Bawden, D.L., 1970. Income Maintenance and the Rural Poor: An Experimental Approach.
American Journal of Agricultural Economics 52, 438--441 (August).
Bawden, D.L., 1976. Implications of a Negative Income Tax for Rural People. American Journal
of Agricultural Economics: 754--760 (December).
Bawden, D.L., 1977a. Income and Work Response of Husbands. In: Bawden, D.L., Harrar, W.S.
(eds.), Final Report of The Rural Income Maintenance Experiment, Madison, WI: Institute for
Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin.
Bawden, D.L., 1977c. Purpose and Design of the Rural Income Maintenance Experiment.
American Journal of Agricultural Economics 59, (5), 855--858 (December).
Bawden, D.L., Harrar, W.S. (eds.), 1977. Final Report of The Rural Income Maintenance
Experiment, Madison, WI: Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin.
Bawden, D.L., Harrar, W.S. (eds.), 1983. Final Report of the Seattle-Denver Income Experiment,
Volume I: Design and Results. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Bawden, D.L., Harrar, W.S., 1978. Design and Operation. In: Palmer, J.L., Pechman, J.A. (eds.),
Welfare in Rural Areas: The North Carolina-Iowa Income Maintenance Experiment. Washington,
DC: Brookings Institution, pp. 23--54.
Betson, D. Greenberg, D., 1983. Uses of Microsimulation in Applied Poverty Research. In:
Goldstein, R., Sacks, S.M., (eds.), Applied Policy Research. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Allanheld.
Betson, D., Greenburg, D., Kasten, R., 1980a. A Microsimulation Model for Analyzing
Alternative Welfare Reform Proposals: An Application to the Program for Better Jobs and
Income. In: Haveman, R., Hollenbeck, K. (eds.), Microeonomic Simulation Models for Public
Policy Analysis, Vol. 1. New York: Academic Press.
Betson, D., Greenburg, D., Kasten, R., 1980b. Using Labor Supply Results to Simulate Welfare
Reform Alternatives. In: Robins, P.K., Spiegelman, R.G., Weiner, S., and Bell, J.G., (eds.), A
Guaranteed Annual Income: Evidence from a Social Experiment. New York: Academic Press.
33

Betson, D., Greenburg, D., Kasten, R., 1981. A Simulation Analysis of the Economic Efficiency
and Distributional Effects of Alternative Program Structures: The Negative Income Tax Versus
the Credit Income Tax. In: Garfinkel (ed.), Income-tested Transfer programs: A Case for and
Against. New York: Academic Press.
Bishop, J.H. 1979. The General Equilibrium Impact of Alternative Antipoverty Strategies.
Industrial and Labor Relations Review 32 (2): pp. 205-223.
Bishop, John H. 1980. Jobs, Cash Transfers, and Martial Instability: A Review and Synthesis of
the Evidence. Journal of Human Resources 15 (3).
Block, W., 1991. Economic Freedom: Toward a Theory of Measurement. Vancouver: Fraser
Institute.
Blum, B.B., 1986. Views of a policymaker and public administrator. In: Munnell, A.H. (ed.),
Lessons from the Income Maintenance Experiments. Boston: Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
Boekmann, M., 1976. Policy Implications of the New Jersey Income Maintenance Experiment.
Policy Sciences 7: 53--76 (March).
Boumol, W., 1974. An Overview of the Results on Consumption, Health, and Social Behavior.
Journal of Human Resources 9 (2): 253--264.
Boumol, W., 1977. An Overview of the Results. In Watts, H.W., Rees, A. (eds.), The New Jersey
Income-Maintenance Experiment Volume III: The Impact on Expenditures, Health, and Social
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45

Table 1: Summary of the Negative Income Tax Experiments in the U.S. & Canada
Name Location(s) Data
collection Sample size:
Initial (final) Sample
Characteristics G* t**
The New Jersey
Graduated Work
Incentive Experiment
(NJ)
New Jersey &
Pennsylvania 1968-
1972 1,216 (983) Black, white, and
Latino, 2-parent
families in urban areas
with a male head aged
18-58 and income
below 150% of the
poverty line.
0.5
0.75
1.00
1.25
0.3
0.5
0.7
The Rural Income-
Maintenance
Experiment (RIME)
Iowa & North
Carolina 1970-
1972 809 (729) Both 2-parent families
and female-headed
households in rural
areas with income
below 150% of poverty
line.
0.5
0.75
1.00
0.3
0.5
0.7
The Seattle/Denver
Income-Maintenance
Experiments
(SIME/DIME)
Seattle &
Denver 1970-
1976,
(some to
1980)
4,800 Black, white, and
Latino families with at
least one dependant and
incomes below $11,00
for single parents,
$13,000 for two parent
families.
0.75,
1.26,
1.48
0.5
0.7,
0.7-.025y,
08-.025y
The Gary, Indiana
Experiment (Gary) Gary, Indiana 1971-
1974 1,799 (967) Black households,
primarily female-
headed, head 18-58,
income below 240% of
poverty line.
0.75
1.0 0.4
0.6
The Manitoba Basic
Annual Income
Experiment
(Mincome)
Winnipeg and
Dauphin,
Manitoba
1975-
1978 1,300 Families with, head
younger than 58 and
income below $13,000
for a family of four.
C$3,800
C$4,800
C$5,800
0.35
0.5
0.75
* G = the Guarantee level.
** t = the marginal tax rate
Sources: Robins et al (1980), Feber and Hirsch (1978), Hum and Simpson (1993a)
46

Table 2: Summary of findings of work reduction effect
Work reduction*
in hours per year ** and percent
Study Data
Source Husbands Wives SFH
Comments and Caveats
Robins
(1985) 4 U.S. -89
-5% -117
-21.1% -123
-13.2% Study of studies that does not assess the methodology of
the studies but simply combines their estimates. Finds
large consistency throughout, and “In no case is there
evidence of a massive withdrawal from the labor force.”
No assessment of whether the work response is large or
small or its effect on cost. Estimates apply to a poverty-
line guarantee rate with a marginal tax rate of 50%.
Burtless
(1986) 4 U.S. -119
-7% -93
-17% -79
-7% Average of results of the four US experiments weighted
by sample size, except for the SFH estimates, which are a
weighted average of the SIME/DIME and Gary results
only.
Keeley
(1981) 4 U.S. -7.9% A simple average of the estimates of 16 studies of the
four U.S. experiments
Robins and
West
(1980a)
SIME/
DIME -128.9
-7% -165.9
-25% -147.1
-15% Estimates “labor supply effects.” It goes without saying
that this is different from “labor market effects.”
Robins and
West
(1980b)
SIME/
DIME -9% -20% -25% Recipients take 2.4 years to fully adjust their behavior to
the new program.
Cain et al
(1974) NJ - -50
-20% - Includes caveats about the limited duration of the test and
the representativeness of the sample. Notes that the
evidence shows a smaller effect than nonexperimental
studies.
Watts et al
(1974) NJ -1.4% to
-6.6% - - Depending on size of G and t
Rees and
Watts
(1976)
NJ -1.5 hpw**
-0.5% -0.61% - Found anomalous positive effect on hours and earnings of
blacks.
Ashenfelter
(1978) RIME -8%
-27% - “There must be serious doubt about the implications of
the experimental results for the adoption of any
permanent negative income tax program.”
Moffitt
(1979a) Gary -3% to -6% 0% -26% to -
30% No caveat about missing demand, but careful not to imply
the results mean more than they do.
Hum and
Simpson
(1993a)
Mincome -17
-1% -15
-3% -133
-17% Smaller response to the Canadian experiment was not
surprising because of the make-up of the sample and the
treatments offered.
* The negative signs indicate that the change in work effort is a reduction
** Hours per year except where indicated “hpw,” hours per week.
NJ = New Jersey Graduated Work Incentive Experiment
SIME/DIME = Seattle / Denver Income Maintenance Experiment
Gary = Gary Income Maintenance Experiment
RIME = Rural Income Maintenance Experiment
Mincome = Manitoba Income Maintenance Experiment
SFH = Single Female “head of household.”
47

Table 3: Labor market findings other than simple work-effort reduction
Study Data
Source Findings Comments and Caveats
Robins,
Tuma, and
Yaeger
(1980)
SIME/
DIME Increase in length of spells out of employment:
Husbands: 9.4 weeks, 27%
Wives: 50 weeks, 42%
Single Females: 56 weeks, 60%
The experimental group was somewhat more likely to
leave employment and substantially more like to remain
nonemployed for longer spells than the control group.
Tuma and
Robins
(1980)
SIME/
DIME Change in rate of entering employment:
Husbands: -22.2
Wives: -39.6
Single female heads: -35.4
Conditional having become nonemployed. This reflects the
fact that the labor-hours reductions were attributable more
to longer spells of unemployment than to reductions in
weekly hours of work.
Hall (1976) NJ Opt out rate: 125-50 plan: 13%
100-50 plan: 25%
50-50 plan: 94%
These are the percentages of participants in the study who
received no benefits. But the results depend substantially
on the participants pre-experimental income.
Robins
(1984) SIME/
DIME Does not find evidence that 3-year and 5-year
studies were biased relative to the response of the
20-year treatment group.
The available evidence is limited.
Cogan
(1983) NJ Husbands reduce labor effort by -5 to -7 hours per
week, conditional on participation This estimate was only for the sub-sample of that actually
received payments and so is not directly comparable to the
estimates of labor response in table 2.
Moffitt
(1979b) Gary Eligible low income population: -4.5%
Total population: -1.6%
The effect of an NIT on labor supply could be
offset by unemployed workers if there is sufficient
slack in the labor market.
Simulation model, does not take demand into account, but
warns, “Assuming the labor-supply curve is forward-
sloping, which it probably is at low age rates, the
experimental estimates over-state the final impact on
employment (due to a demand response).”
Keeley et
al (1978b) SIME/
DIME Predicted labor supply response of a national
program: Husbands: -5.3%
Wives: -22.0%
SFH: -11.2%
Applies the experimental parameters for labor supply
functions to a national data base to obtain estimates of the
nationwide aggregate labor effect and so these findings are
not directly comparable to those in Table 2. Finds that the
results vary wide with the generosity of the program.
Greenberg
(1983) SIME/
DIME Response of the demand for labor had a small
mitigating effect on hours. Results depended on assumptions on the level of
unemployment and the elasticities of demand and supply
of labor and the substitutability and availability of workers
making similar wages to those eligible for NIT.
Keeley et
al (1978a) SIME/
DIME Labor Supply response accounts for 23% to 55%
of programs with a positive net cost. That is, cost
before labor supply response is 45% to 77% of
total cost.
Range depends on the size of G and t. Justifies the
assumption of perfectly elastic demand on employers’
ability to substitute high-wage, high-skilled workers for
workers who are likely to be affected by an NIT.
Robins
(1980a) SIME/
DIME Replacement of the 1974 welfare system with an
NIT would have cost an additional $2.2 billion to
$30 billion ($55 to $97 in 2004 dollars). The
work-effort response would add $0.2 to $7.0
billion ($0.6 to $23 in 2004 dollars) to cost.
Range of responses depends on the size of G and t.
Demand response not included.
Rees and
Watts
(1976)
NJ Increase tax cost due to supply response: 5 to 10% Demand response not included.
Ashenfelter
(1978) RIME Estimates that the cost before the labor supply
response would only 78% of the cost after the
labor supply response.
Demand response not included. Findings could be restated
to say that the work-effort response adds 28% to the
transfer cost.
Burtless
(1986) 4 U.S. $3 in transfers raises the income of recipients by
only $1. Poverty among all families with children
could be eliminated for an additional cost of $61
billion ($98 in 2004 dollars).
Demand response not included.
Maxfield SIME/
DIME Labor supply response is highly correlated to the
generosity of the NIT program. Demand response not included.
Bishop
(1979) SIME/
DIME “Reduction in labor supply produced by these
programs does tend to raise low-skill wages, and
this improves transfer efficiency.”
General equilibrium model focusing on efficiency effects,
and so results are not directly comparable to those focusing
on tax cost. Results are sensitive to assumptions
48

Figure 1: The vertical axis shows the wage (W), the horizontal axis shows the hours worked (H).
The work disincentive effect causes the supply among the experimental group to shift from S0 to
S1. Because the experimental group is small in comparison to the size of the market, the results
would reflect a fixed-wage shift in hours worked (at WA) from point A to point B, which
involves only a decline in hours and no increase in the wage. If all workers in the market
received the NIT, there would be a movement along the supply curve. The market outcome
would go from A to C instead of A to B, increasing the wage to WC and partially offsetting the
decrease in hours worked by difference between HC and HB.
W
S
1 S
0
WC C
W
A B A
D
H
B H
C H
A H
49

Figure 2: If Demand is completely inelastic, there is no equilibrium reduction in work hours.
W S1
W1 C S
W
0 B A
D
H
Figure 3: If demand is completely elastic, there is no change in the wage, and the full reduction in work hours in the
experiments would occur in the market.
W
S
1 S
W
0 B A D
H
Figure 4: The range of possible market responses to a given horizontal shift in the supply of labor.
W
W
0 B A
H
50