Who knew that a small town in Manitoba would be the site of one of the Canada’s most controversial – and paradoxically unheard of – social experiments? On the other hand, many controversial “social experiments” do get swept under the rug, especially if millions of dollars were spent on it, with no analyzed results or final report to speak of.

Have I piqued your interest? Any guesses? No, Dauphin, Manitoba was not the site of experiments testing the medical or psychological benefits of LSD – although the experiment did take place in the 70s. Nor was it a desert-come-prairie North of the border Area 51 – although that would have been pretty darn cool. No, Dauphin, Manitoba was the site of the Mincome Experiment.

Mincome was a program that ran from 1974 to 1978 and was jointly funded by the Federal and Provincial Governments. It guaranteed a minimum annual income to residents of Manitoba, and was administered by a Negative Income Tax (a tax refund to anyone whose income fell below a cut off line, to bring it back above the line). The experiment was run as a randomized controlled trial in Winnipeg, meaning that participant families were chosen randomly and were compared against other randomly selected “control” residents who did not receive income support. Dauphin was a special site – all residents were guaranteed income support if their incomes fell below a certain support rate.

I’m incredibly surprised how few Canadians I’ve spoken to are aware of Mincome – it’s probably due to the fact that the data was shoved into 1800 boxes, archived away, and duly forgotten … until now. An ambitious researcher by the name of Dr. Evelyn Forget has dug up the old data and has been crunching the numbers – with some surprising results.

While she had not yet been given permission to analyze participant surveys and interviews (which are held by archives Canada), she has spent the last few years looking at census and other information for Dauphin during the Mincome days. Some of her findings? Kids stayed in school longer during this period, hospital admissions (including admissions for mental health issues) dropped for those in Dauphin against a control group, and accidents and injuries declined. While these findings do not imply causation, they do suggest ample reason to look further at the data, look elsewhere to see if there are any similar programs that have worked, and find out if there is any research to create a supportive theoretical basis for the findings.

Looking globally, for instance, there is a pilot project taking place in Namibia right now that provides every resident in a Namibian village a basic monthly income. This project has been underway for just over a year, and initial results show significant positive effects: a significant decrease in rates of malnourishment, increased school attendance, decreased crime, decreased poverty rates, and decreased unemployment, to name a few.

A very strong base of evidence, much of it coming from Canada, also exists that supports the link between income and employment, education, and health. Level of income has been shown to affect overall living conditions, psychological functioning, and health-related behaviours such as quality of diet, physical activity, and tobacco use. Income also has an impact on food security, housing, and other basic prerequisites of health. Additionally, evidence suggests that it’s not just how much income one has but the degree of income equality in a society that is important –more equal income distribution is one of the best predictors of better overall health of a society. And what better way to achieve more equal income distribution that guaranteeing a minimal annual income for all?

The unstable economic and employment conditions in both the U.S. and Canada, and the unsustainable and inequitable health care system in America could potentially benefit from such an initiative – whether such an initiative could ever be entertained – well, that might be just as plausible as alien experiments taking place in small town “area 51” Manitoba.