“Politically, there was a concern that if you began a guaranteed annual income, people would stop working and start having large families,” says Forget.32 What really happened was precisely the opposite. Young adults postponed getting married, and birth rates dropped. Their school performance improved substantially: The “Mincome cohort” studied harder and faster. In the end, total work hours only notched down 1% for men, 3% for married women, and 5% for unmarried women. Men who were family breadwinners hardly worked less at all, while new mothers used the cash assistance to take several
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