Mincome

Mincome is the name of an experimental Canadian Basic income project that was held in Dauphin, Manitoba during the 1970s. The project, funded jointly by the Manitoba provincial government and the Canadian federal government, began with a news release on February 22, 1974, and was closed down in 1979. The purpose of this experiment was to determine whether a guaranteed, unconditional annual income actually caused disincentive to work for the recipients, and how great such a disincentive would be.

A final report was never issued, but Dr. Evelyn Forget [for-ZHAY] has conducted analysis of the research. She found that only new mothers and teenagers worked less. Mothers with newborns stopped working because they wanted to stay at home longer with their babies, and teenagers worked less because they weren't under as much pressure to support their families, which resulted in more teenagers graduating. In addition, those who continued to work were given more opportunities to choose what type of work they did. Forget found that in the period that Mincome was administered, hospital visits dropped 8.5 per cent, with fewer incidences of work-related injuries, and fewer emergency room visits from car accidents and domestic abuse.

External links

• Derek Hum, Wayne Simpson: "A Guaranteed Annual Income? From Mincome to the Millennium". Options Politiques 1/2001, S. 78–82 (PDF).
• "The town with no poverty: A history of the North American Guaranteed Annual Income Social Experiments" (2008 draft for an upcoming study by Dr. Evelyn L. Forget funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research)
• Mary Agnes Welch, An end to the perpetual welfare trap? Guaranteed incomes debated