Income Maintenance Experimentation and Welfare Policy

Abstract

The Seattle and Denver income maintenance experiment culminated the most ambitious policy analytic experiment undertaken in the United States during the 1960s and 1970s. After 12 years of research and $110 million spent, the Carter Administration sat down to reform welfare policy with the initial experimental findings in hand. Its experience underscores the difficulty of using analysis for policymaking when the policy arena exhibits high value conflict. In such contexts analysis becomes primarily a symbolic or forensic tool that has little impact on policy. Value conflict and several dimensions of individual belief systems—development and intensity—mediate the utilization and impact of analysis. Regardless of the effect of analysis on policy, it generally influences the decision process, shapes thinking, legitimates partisan positions, and is a vehicle for substantial material gain. All of these impacts of analysis are relevant to the conceptualization and understanding of ulilization.