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[ponpo]

NPR

Today practically all aid is given as "in-kind" donations — whether that's food, an asset like a cow, job training or schoolbooks. And this means that, in effect, it's the providers of aid — governments, donor organizations, even private individuals donating to a charity — who decide what poor people need most. But what if you just gave poor people cash with no strings attached? Let them decide how best to use it?

GiveDirectly has actually been advocating for this kind of cash aid for the past decade. Founded by four grad students in economics who wanted to challenge traditional aid, the charity has already given $65 million to people across Kenya, Rwanda and Uganda, provided by a mix of Silicon Valley foundations and ordinary citizens who contribute through GiveDirectly's website. And GiveDirectly has shown through rigorous, independent study that people don't waste the money.

Still, those cash grants were relatively modest one-time payouts. With this experiment, GiveDirectly wants to see what happens when you give extremely poor people a much longer runway — a guaranteed "basic income" they can count on for years. Michael Faye, the chairman of GiveDirectly, says they've chosen to set the payment at $22 because in Kenya $22 per person per month is "the food poverty line — the amount of money it would take to afford a basic basket of food for yourself."

Some of the world's foremost researchers of anti-poverty strategies will be doing an independent study of the data that emerges — including Alan Krueger, professor of economics at Princeton University, and Abhijit Banerjee, a professor of economics at MIT and director of the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab.

...He still wishes he could feed his children more meat and fish. But with the extra charity money, now he can at least guarantee them solid food for both lunch and dinner. And for breakfast they're getting milk from several goats that are chomping on shrubbery nearby. The family used to own just two. With the charity money they've bought three more. They hope to breed them — then sell the offspring. Maybe upgrade to a cow.

Longer term Otieno has an even more ambitious plan: "I'm thinking of putting up a forest," he says. Specifically, a grove of eucalyptus and cypress trees. They're used as lumber in construction. Every month Otieno has been setting aside $10 of the charity money to save up for saplings. They should be tall enough to sell in five years. He wants to use the money to put all four of his children through high school. He'll designate a different section of the grove for each child to help him tend. "It's going to be like their bank account," he says, laughing.

As for any planning beyond that? There's not much, he admits. Unlike his cousin Denis Otieno, Odero has no scheme for how to use the charity income to make more money. No strategy for the day the money will stop coming.

I ask him, "Do you worry that at that point you will be back to where you were before?"

"Yes," he says, casting his eyes downward. "I think I might."

So would this make GiveDirectly's grand experiment a failure?

Faye, the charity's chairman, says not necessarily. "There's a lot of talk about this magic bullet that you can apply once and people will no longer be poor," he says. "I think we all hope that to be true. We would obviously hope cash has the long-term impact."

But he points out that this is an unfair standard. Every month that GiveDirectly provides the villagers with $22 the charity is, by definition, lifting them out of extreme poverty. So on some level, it's just a different version of the billions in relief aid that the world currently spends annually to provide desperately poor people with food and other forms of in-kind help. No one expects that type of aid to permanently lift people out of poverty. So it would be enough for this experiment to show that just giving poor people cash is more efficient and effective.

"Let them make the choices," says Faye. "Because the poor are pretty good at making them."

More + audio at the link. Unrelated but the hamlet looks like a quaint RPG village.

 

[cakely]

This is "basic income", right? It's an interesting concept, but, sadly, you'd still end up with homeless people spending money that could be used for rent or food on addictions.

Ideally, shelter, food, health care and education would be something that should be provided, for free, to every citizen. There's more than enough wealth in the US to do this. Don't provide money, provide the actual services that the money should be buying.

Instead, the top .001% of the country gets to spend all that wealth buying skyscrapers and literal islands.

 

[Uhyve]

Makes sense. The money brought in will help people suffering from poverty and when spent, goes back into the local economies, unlike just bringing in cheap aid from other countries.

 

[Puck Beaverton]

This is "basic income", right? It's an interesting concept, but, sadly, you'd still end up with homeless people spending money that could be used for rent or food on addictions.

Ideally, shelter, food, health care and education would be something that should be provided, for free, to every citizen. There's more than enough wealth in the US to do this. Don't provide money, provide the actual services that the money should be buying.

Instead, the top .001% of the country gets to spend all that wealth buying skyscrapers and literal islands.

I would say the majority of addicts are addicts because they're trying to escape their shitty lives.

 

[Locke562]

This is "basic income", right? It's an interesting concept, but, sadly, you'd still end up with homeless people spending money that could be used for rent or food on addictions.

Ideally, shelter, food, health care and education would be something that should be provided, for free, to every citizen. There's more than enough wealth in the US to do this. Don't provide money, provide the actual services that the money should be buying.

Instead, the top .001% of the country gets to spend all that wealth buying skyscrapers and literal islands.

Resources for mental health would do a lot to help with homelessness. The UBI is for everyone else.

 

[Laiza]

This is "basic income", right? It's an interesting concept, but, sadly, you'd still end up with homeless people spending money that could be used for rent or food on addictions.

Everyone always says this, but it's a small percentage of poor people who are actually addicts. The majority of poor people will always spend the money they get on basic necessities.

Addicts need special attention in order to recover from their addictions, it's true, but they're so small a part of the overall pie that it's disingenuous to use them as a reason to deny basic welfare to people in poverty. They are separate (but related) issues that require separate solutions.

 

[Familienoberhauptvogel]

I'm actually amazed how quickly sentiment went to drugs and alcohol.

 

[Protein]

We ca't just give poor people money. They'll become lazy slobs that leech off the system.

What we need to do is take money from poor people and give it to rich people instead.

 

[Guevara]

I'm actually amazed how quickly sentiment went to drugs and alcohol.

That's the bias.

Poor people are poor because they make bad choices.

More money will just let them made bigger mistakes.

 

[avaya]

Shit is going to get real interesting when structural unemployment reaches well into the double digits and the "jobs" people have in the gig economy can barely sustain them above the poverty line.

By interesting I mean horrific.

Automation mandates UBI implementation, otherwise we are headed for the return of a feudal society.

 

[BackLogJoe]

That's the bias.

Poor people are poor because they make bad choices.

More money will just let them made bigger mistakes.

Those fucking poors.

 

[Waddle Dee]

Sadly, the only way the government would give money to poor people is if the rich were also given the same amount since if they weren't then they'd complain like the spoiled children they are. The rich don't see the benefit in helping the poor if they don't gain something out of it.

 

[Kill3r7]

I guess it could work on a small scale but I cannot imagine doing this for tens of millions of people which is what be required once automation becomes the norm.

 

[sans_pants]

I guess it could work on a small scale but I cannot imagine doing this for tens of millions of people which is what be required once automation becomes the norm.

what are the other solutions then?

 

[Skar]

A basic income, food, and housing are necessities that every man needs. Whether he is addicted, mentally ill, depraved or not. I really see no alternative to taking on poverty than to take an initiative to provide every human being with these necessities no matter who they are.

I remember years ago when I was deep in the shit with severe depression, bipolar and drug and alcohol addictions I very seriously contemplated committing a series crimes to get myself incarcerated just so I could have a "safe" place to stay. I had almost nothing and was losing the little I had fast. I was so scared, alone, desperate. I hated myself and my life. I was gonna crack the windows of some businesses downtown and maybe push some people around without hurting them but enough for a charge and go to jail.

Instead I went to the hospital for a mental health crises. I went into treatment several times Over the years and Ive slowly managed to work my way up to where I am now at 26 with a 50-60k job and my own apartment. It took years to get here though. The struggle is real.

I never imagined that I would wind up this way growing up. I was just partying and I had some depression and anxiety issues from a rough childhood. It blossomed into something much greater than the sum of its parts though and I completely lost control. I had no idea what to do.

I know that if I had more access to housing and supports it would eased much of my pain and maybe I could've snubbed this more easily and earlier. Maybe not, but everyone deserves a chance and no one deserves to be left out cold and alone without a bite to eat, a roof to get out of the rain, or a shoulder to cry on. That's why so many become so trapped and eventually turn to a life of addiction and crime.

Yes some are just sociopaths and severe criminals and should be incarcerated. Jail is a form of housing too. Mostly it's just a lot of hurt people who need continued, ongoing support. It's a life long issue.

 

[Fuchsdh]

The argument isn't really whether direct cash infusions work (although the question is what standard you use for success), but, as the article points out, what happens long-term. A lot of previous research and attempts to track what happens with windfalls has not shown any long-term positive change—poor people stayed poor, rich people stayed rich.

Income strategies like these are unsustainable with current demographic trends in a first-world country, so the more germane question to those of us in the west is if you can apply the same strategies. Will be interesting to see what the results are.

 

[Foffy]

The future is all about ensuring people access to the basic necessities of living.

Anything to get is there is absolutely crucial to do.