A Politica~ Scientist’s View of the Income Maintenance Experiments

The negative income tax experiments were designed to influence political debate on income support policy in at least two ways. One was methodological -to focus the policy debate on a few key empirical questions and produce more definitive evidence than would have been available through nonexperimental methods. Another was political -to legitimize the idea of a universal cash transfer program, scaled to the recipient’s income, as an alternative to the patchwork collection of inkind and categorical assistance programs that had grown up since the New Deal.