MIS was originally funded, in 2006, under the title of a Minimum Income Standard for Britain, by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, and carried out in partnership by the Centre for Research in Social Policy (CRSP) at Loughborough University and the Family Budget Unit at the University of York.
The original research was carried out in Britain in 2007 and the findings presented in 2008 were costed using April 2008 prices.