For four years in the mid-1970s an unusual experiment took place in the small Canadian town of Dauphin. Statistically significant benefits for those who took part included fewer physician contacts related to mental health and fewer hospital admissions for "accident and injury." Mental health diagnoses in Dauphin also fell. Once the experiment ended, these public health benefits evaporated.1 What was the treatment being tested? It was what has become known as a basic income--a regular, unconditional payment made to each and every citizen.

We have a crisis of work. The secure, well-paid jobs of the past -- many of them in manufacturing -- are disappearing. What is replacing them is insecurity and uncertainty. The "gig economy", where people are paid performance by performance -- or piece by piece. "Piecework", we used to call it.