A charity's radical experiment: giving 6,000 Kenyans a guaranteed basic income for a decade

[applegrove]

A charity's radical experiment: giving 6,000 Kenyans a guaranteed basic income for a decade

by Dylan Matthews at Vox

http://www.vox.com/2016/4/14/11410904/givedirectly-basic-income

"SNIP............


Give Directly, a charity that gives money directly to poor people in Kenya and Uganda, is launching a big new project: a basic income.

A basic income — also called a universal basic income (UBI), guaranteed minimum income, citizens' dividend, demogrant, etc. — is a regular payment to a group of people just for being alive. Normally, basic income proposals call for the payments to be administered by the government, but there's nothing in principle stopping a nonprofit like GiveDirectly from doing it.

So it's giving the policy a shot, and will give about 6,000 people in Kenya a guaranteed flow of cash for the next 10 years or more. In doing so, GiveDirectly is testing out an idea that's rapidly gaining interest in Finland, Silicon Valley, and Ontario, Canada, and could radically transform welfare policy in both rich and poor countries in the future.

More than that, it's creating what is perhaps the first true universal basic income in recorded history. There have been previous policies that are at least somewhat like this. But GiveDirectly's introduction of a universal payment for whole villages over a long, long period, set at a level of basic subsistence, is truly historic.



..............SNIP"

[malaise]

1. Will follow this one

Always nervous about charities

[hfojvt]

2. they are getting 70 cents to $1.25 per day

not exactly a living wage.

I am not saying they will not appreciate having their income double, but

the argument against a minimum income is

If people can get their needs met without working, why would anybody work? And if almost nobody works, then how do you sustain this basic minimum income? In this experiment the minimum income is clearly NOT enough to give most people an incentive to stop working.

I am also always curious about prices. What can they buy with $2? In America that would only get you about two hamburgers, or a half gallon of milk or something. It would not come close to putting a roof over your head. So are they somehow living rent and tax free? And can they do things like - buy a whole chicken for 50 cents? Or would they be more like us - buy a bag of flour, get some free water from a stream, catch some rabbits and make a stew (or some such subsistence life)?

[applegrove]

3. I think the theory behind it is that if you give people enough income to not struggle so much with

survival, they can taste what life is like with some choices. And they want more. Maybe it is as simple as you give people room to dream. Or think ahead. To be all the things humans can be at their best. Instead of spending the day thinking of nothing but hunger, or worse their children's hunger. And so they do much better in all aspects of life.

[Dont call me Shirley]

10. "Not to struggle so much"?! Struggle creates stress, creates disease, creates PTSD, creates lack of

motivation, creates a whole heap of trauma generational trauma.

[applegrove]

11. Absolutely. Every extra bit of income rocks the world of those people for the better. Why guaranteed

income works.

[Dont call me Shirley]

12. That's why FDRs policies MUST be continued and expanded.

[treestar]

6. To live better

It is IMO right wingers who are the ones that would not work - they project and reveal to us they only work because they are forced to and take that away and they wouldn't do it.

Early empires, like the Romans, fed everyone. A lot of people went from there to do more. There is always ambition.

[The2ndWheel]

14. Some people from any political ideology would not work

But that's the whole point of it. There's not enough for everyone to do. How many people today are truly needed for society to function? Business has access to more people than ever around the world, and there's more and more automation, which is just some people building machines to specifically make you not needed as an employee.

I think we'll eventually get to the point where a basic income is the norm, as long as the energy to maintain such a thing is cheap enough for society to do so. There really is only so much busy work for people to do. However, with billions and billions of people around the world, we're not all going to become self-actualized artists sitting at the café all day. It'll be the same messy diversity it is today. Some people may get even more addicted to their drug of choice. Some people may get stuck in their video game/virtual reality world, because why not? Some people will be incredibly productive with their new free time. Some people might go nuts from an existential crisis. It'll be all over the map.

As for where the money would come from, well money is only limited by the human imagination. The government just needs to type in X amount into someone's bank account, and there you go.

[Spitfire of ATJ]

9. Work or die has led to a lot of death.

[Hortensis]

4. How nice to read about this, thanks, Apple Grove.

Givewell.org has an analysis of Give Directly itself.

[mercuryblues]

5. when people don't

have to worry and claw their way up to a better life, it leads to great things happening.



http://www.today.com/news/millionaire-uses-fortune-help-kids-struggling-town-1C9373666


Twenty years ago, the Orlando, Fla. neighborhood of Tangelo Park was a crime-infested place where people were afraid to walk down the street. The graduation rate at the local high school was 25 percent. Having amassed a fortune from his success in the hotel business, Rosen decided Tangelo Park needed some hospitality of its own.

“Hospitality really is appreciating a fellow human being,” Rosen told Gabe Gutierrez in a segment that aired on TODAY Wednesday. “I came to the realization that I really had to now say, ‘Thank you.’’’

Rosen, 73, began his philanthropic efforts by paying for day care for parents in Tangelo Park, a community of about 3,000 people. When those children reached high school, he created a scholarship program in which he offered to pay free tuition to Florida state colleges for any students in the neighborhood.

In the two decades since starting the programs, Rosen has donated nearly $10 million, and the results have been remarkable. The high school graduation rate is now nearly 100 percent, and some property values have quadrupled. The crime rate has been cut in half, according to a study by the University of Central Florida.

[Hydra]

7. I'm always glad to see this idea expanded

And I just have to laugh at the people who say nobody will work after that. That won't happen until we are more automated...but that's already coming, with or without a basic standard of living.

[SoLeftIAmRight]

8. this type things has worked in many cases

good info out there

hillary is not the one that will get behind thiis kind of thing - sad

[bemildred]

13. Seems obvious to me. How to help the poor? Give them some money.

Give them a little bit more, and they won't even be poor.