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The Town with No Poverty
7 p.m. Thursday February 25, 2010
Hamilton Spectator Auditorium (map/directions)
What happens when you guarantee an entire town a basic income?
In 1974 a small town in the Prairies (code-named River City) became the subject of a fascinating social experiment: every family was guaranteed a basic income.
The experiment was paid for by the federal government and the province of Manitoba, and its goal was to determine whether people would stop working or reduce the number of hours they worked as a consequence.
The money flowed until 1979. The data collected was never analyzed. Instead, it was warehoused and the radical social experiment was largely forgotten.
Was quality of life affected by the experiment? Were people healthier? Were they happier? Did the children stay in school longer?
Evelyny Forget's research team was able to access the administrative database for provincial health insurance to identify everyone who lived in "River City" during the experiment, and to compare their health and social outcomes with those of other Manitobans matched on the basis of age, sex and family composition who lived in similar Prairie towns.
Please join Professor Forget on Thursday February 25 to hear the answers to these important social questions and to learn more about how poverty impacts health.
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ABOUT THE LECTURER
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Evelyn L. Forget is an economist and professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences at the University of Manitoba.
She is a research associate of the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy and the First Nations Centre for Aboriginal Health Research, Academic Director of the Manitoba Research Data Centre and co-editor of the Journal of the History of Economic Thought. Current research interests include antipoverty policy, health systems finance and First Nations health funding.
Read Professor Forget's interview with The Hamilton Spectator's Rachel De Lazzer
Thursday February 25
Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Lecture begins at 7 p.m.
Hamilton Specator Auditorium
To reserve your seat:
e-mail sciencecity@mcmaster.ca
Or by phone 905-525-9140, extension 24934
Click here for directions to The Hamilton Spectator Auditorium
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