Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share The Cruel Experiment: How Basic Income Transformed Lives Until Politicians Pulled the Plug
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
The Cruel Experiment: How Basic Income Transformed Lives Until Politicians Pulled the Plug
Send us a text
The Ontario Basic Income Pilot wasn't just another government program. For thousands of struggling Canadians, it was a lifeline that allowed them to breathe for the first time in years. Then a new government snatched it away, pushing many participants deeper into despair than before the experiment began.
If we want to understand the relationship between money and mental health, we need to listen to the stories of people who experienced both having and losing a financial floor beneath them.
When Politicians Play With People's Lives
Imagine finally being able to afford nutritious food instead of "crappy" processed meals. Picture having enough money to escape an apartment with toxic mold. Envision the dignity of no longer needing food banks or soup kitchens that come with judgment and shame.
This wasn't a fantasy for the participants in Ontario's Basic Income Pilot (OBIP). It was their temporary reality.
In 2017, the Ontario government launched an experiment giving selected low-income residents a guaranteed income above the poverty line. The plan was to run the program for three years to evaluate its effects. But when a new conservative government took power in 2018, they immediately canceled it – creating a social whiplash effect that researchers are still documenting today.
What makes this particular study so powerful isn't just the confirmation that giving people money improves their lives. It's what happens when that stability is suddenly ripped away. ... continue reading the article: https://helioxpodcast.substack.com/
Reference:
This is Heliox: Where Evidence Meets Empathy
Independent, moderated, timely, deep, gentle, clinical, global, and community conversations about things that matter. Breathe Easy, we go deep and lightly surface the big ideas.
Thanks for listening today!
Four recurring narratives underlie every episode: boundary dissolution, adaptive complexity, embodied knowledge, and quantum-like uncertainty. These aren’t just philosophical musings but frameworks for understanding our modern world.
We hope you continue exploring our other podcasts, responding to the content, and checking out our related articles on the Heliox Podcast on Substack.
Support the show
About SCZoomers:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1632045180447285
https://x.com/SCZoomers
https://mstdn.ca/@SCZoomers
https://bsky.app/profile/safety.bsky.app
Spoken word, short and sweet, with rhythm and a catchy beat.
http://tinyurl.com/stonefolksongs
Curated, independent, moderated, timely, deep, gentle, evidenced-based, clinical & community information regarding COVID-19. Since 2017, it has focused on Covid since Feb 2020, with Multiple Stores per day, hence a large searchable base of stories to date. More than 4000 stories on COVID-19 alone. Hundreds of stories on Climate Change.
Zoomers of the Sunshine Coast is a news organization with the advantages of deeply rooted connections within our local community, combined with a provincial, national and global following and exposure. In written form, audio, and video, we provide evidence-based and referenced stories interspersed with curated commentary, satire and humour. We reference where our stories come from and who wrote, published, and even inspired them. Using a social media platform means we have a much higher degree of interaction with our readers than conventional media and provides a significant amplification effect, positively. We expect the same courtesy of other media referencing our stories.
View all episodes
By by SC ZoomersSend us a text
The Ontario Basic Income Pilot wasn't just another government program. For thousands of struggling Canadians, it was a lifeline that allowed them to breathe for the first time in years. Then a new government snatched it away, pushing many participants deeper into despair than before the experiment began.
If we want to understand the relationship between money and mental health, we need to listen to the stories of people who experienced both having and losing a financial floor beneath them.
When Politicians Play With People's Lives
Imagine finally being able to afford nutritious food instead of "crappy" processed meals. Picture having enough money to escape an apartment with toxic mold. Envision the dignity of no longer needing food banks or soup kitchens that come with judgment and shame.
This wasn't a fantasy for the participants in Ontario's Basic Income Pilot (OBIP). It was their temporary reality.
In 2017, the Ontario government launched an experiment giving selected low-income residents a guaranteed income above the poverty line. The plan was to run the program for three years to evaluate its effects. But when a new conservative government took power in 2018, they immediately canceled it – creating a social whiplash effect that researchers are still documenting today.
What makes this particular study so powerful isn't just the confirmation that giving people money improves their lives. It's what happens when that stability is suddenly ripped away. ... continue reading the article: https://helioxpodcast.substack.com/
Reference:
This is Heliox: Where Evidence Meets Empathy
Independent, moderated, timely, deep, gentle, clinical, global, and community conversations about things that matter. Breathe Easy, we go deep and lightly surface the big ideas.
Thanks for listening today!
Four recurring narratives underlie every episode: boundary dissolution, adaptive complexity, embodied knowledge, and quantum-like uncertainty. These aren’t just philosophical musings but frameworks for understanding our modern world.
We hope you continue exploring our other podcasts, responding to the content, and checking out our related articles on the Heliox Podcast on Substack.
Support the show
About SCZoomers:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1632045180447285
https://x.com/SCZoomers
https://mstdn.ca/@SCZoomers
https://bsky.app/profile/safety.bsky.app
Spoken word, short and sweet, with rhythm and a catchy beat.
http://tinyurl.com/stonefolksongs
Curated, independent, moderated, timely, deep, gentle, evidenced-based, clinical & community information regarding COVID-19. Since 2017, it has focused on Covid since Feb 2020, with Multiple Stores per day, hence a large searchable base of stories to date. More than 4000 stories on COVID-19 alone. Hundreds of stories on Climate Change.
Zoomers of the Sunshine Coast is a news organization with the advantages of deeply rooted connections within our local community, combined with a provincial, national and global following and exposure. In written form, audio, and video, we provide evidence-based and referenced stories interspersed with curated commentary, satire and humour. We reference where our stories come from and who wrote, published, and even inspired them. Using a social media platform means we have a much higher degree of interaction with our readers than conventional media and provides a significant amplification effect, positively. We expect the same courtesy of other media referencing our stories.