The role of guaranteed income in healthy aging: Canadian public pensions and their association with physical health, mental health, and health risks.

The idea of government-sponsored guaranteed annual income, giving people money with little or no conditions, is popular among health and poverty advocates. We know that health and income are related, with the lowest income individuals experiencing the worst average level of health. However, there is little evidence in Canada that giving people money on a large scale improves their health. One underexplored source of evidence for this relationship is Canadian public pensions. These pensions give a guaranteed annual income of about $18,000 to individuals who satisfy eligibility criteria upon reaching age 65. Using the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging baseline and follow-up data, we will follow individuals over time as they transition onto public pensions. We will apply statistical models to this data to describe how guaranteed income influences physical and mental health outcomes across the income spectrum. We will have a special focus on individuals who can experience a real benefit from a guaranteed annual income, like people who are on social assistance or otherwise at risk of low income prior to age 65. These estimates will be broken out for different identifiable groups and, when appropriate, we will model the change in the distribution of variables rather than changes in the average. This work will provide information to policymakers on the expected benefit of changing the age of eligibility for public pensions, or more broadly, the health impact on different groups in Canada of providing a guaranteed minimum income.