Conclusion: Lessons from the Alaska Model

Abstract

The APF and PFD are not perfectly designed, but they are a unique and innovative combination from which we can learn and on which we can improve. At a time when conditional social policies are under attack across the industrialized world, the Alaska Dividend continues to be extremely popular. It distributes a yearly dividend to every man, woman, and child in Alaska without any conditions whatsoever. As this volume has shown, the Alaska Dividend has helped Alaska maintain one of the lowest poverty rates in the United States. It has helped Alaska become the most economically equal of all 50 states. And it has helped Alaska become the only US state in which equality has risen rather than fallen over the past 20 years. Alaska is doing something right, and the dividend is a part of it.