4 ms·

I'm not sure if I'm understanding this correctly - maybe I'm missing something significant here, but it says they're giving people 75 cents per day per person?

• RubenSandwich 8y ago
  From my understand this is going to the poorest of the poor in Kenya, because the median Kenyaian monthly salary is ~800 USD.[1][2] So this UBI experiment does not seem to be for the average population, more as a form of welfare. Still interesting and meaningful research, but not the long term UBI experiment many are waiting for. [1] http://www.salaryexplorer.com/salary-survey.php?loc=111&loctype=1 http://www.salaryexplorer.com/salary-survey.php?loc=111&loct... [2] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=80%2C000+KES+in+usd&t=osx&ia=currency https://duckduckgo.com/?q=80%2C000+KES+in+usd&t=osx&ia=curre... Edit: Source [1] seems to be unreliable. See below comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17013632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17013632. So while the number is wrong, it does seem that this UBI is still targeting the poor.
  • crsv 8y ago
    Thanks, somehow I missed that, this makes much more sense but then raises some fundamental questions regarding the potential pigeon holing of UBI as a tool whose efficacy is primarily shaped by the state of the economy in which it is deployed (ie this study is highly dependent on the underlying economy being that of a severely under developed nation state).
    • jerf 8y ago
      Maybe I'm being slightly too cynical, but that's pretty much inevitable. A great deal more "scientific knowledge" than you'd probably be entirely comfortable with knowing involves taking a point sample of some space and applying it way, way away from where the sample was actually taken. If this study succeeds, then you can expect the HN commentariat to be citing how BI has been scientifically proved to be a good idea until the end of time, and if this study fails, the opposite. Even better, there's really two types of BI going on here. One is as a mechanism for poverty alleviation, by getting capital to people who have none. Not just "not much", but none. The other is as a solution to the as-yet mostly future problem of the work force being automated out of existence in every industry that people below a certain IQ threshold can work productively in. Expect those to be conflated freely, even though in my opinion they're two different problems. (If you squint really hard, yes, they blur together, but don't ignore the fact that you're squinting.)
      • jfoutz 8y ago
        As one of the likely cheerleaders, without the tax credit, it’s not UBI. (In my humble opinion) This is pure charity.
    • jgtrosh 8y ago
      What do you mean by pigeon holing here? I don't understand what are the variables and what is the value space. (No disrespect, just trying to understand.)
  • latchkey 8y ago
    $148 USD in HCMC [1], which is a modern city. [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=vietnam+average+salary https://www.google.com/search?q=vietnam+average+salary
  • nopinsight 8y ago
    The figure from the above website is wrong. US$800 per month is in the upper middle-income territory but Kenya is still a lower middle-income nation. https://qz.com/635952/kenyas-goal-of-being-an-upper-middle-income-economy-by-2030-is-farfetched-says-world-bank/ https://qz.com/635952/kenyas-goal-of-being-an-upper-middle-i... Kenya's GDP per capita was around $1143 or less than $100 per month in 2016. "The average monthly wage in Kenya is 6,498 shillings ($76).", according to Reuters in 2013. https://tradingeconomics.com/kenya/gdp-per-capita https://tradingeconomics.com/kenya/gdp-per-capita https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kenya-reform-idUSBRE94R0MW20130528 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kenya-reform-idUSBRE94R0M... This means that the basic income ($22.5 per month or ~20-30% of national median salary) to be provided to Kenyans should account for a substantial part of their income and the experiment could become a basis for an analysis of basic income effects in certain communities.
• deevolution 8y ago
  Also considering inflation and the weakening of the US dollar and theyre getting even less. There are so many environmental variables as well, especially over such a large time frame. It will definitely be hard to find a strong signal through all that noise. They need to go big or go home with this kind of experiment.
  • mobilefriendly 8y ago
    Well, the dollar is up about 80% against the Kenyan Shilling over the past ten years. Even if the dollar weakens in the coming years the local currency may fare worse.
• Sverigevader 8y ago
  I'd assume that a UBI study like this would start with having people suddenly not being forced to work to survive, or do anything for that matter, while looking at how their lives change over the course of at least a year. Without any kind of guidance I'd expect a fast descent into apathy and lethargy with most people.
  • doubletgl 8y ago
    This contra-UBI argument is often made, but I find it a bit short-sighted. Instead of having "survival" or "career" as a overarching goal in life, (some) people will have to find their own purpose in life. It's a bigger challenge but I believe in human adaptability. The question is how painful it will be initially and how long it will take for people to settle in this new mindset.
    • Sverigevader 8y ago
      This is essentially my viewpoint as well. To mitigate the effects during the transition period I imagine some kind of social service in place where people can spend a lot of time learning to adapt to this new lifestyle.
  • jpindar 8y ago
    Would YOU quit your job and descend into apathy and lethargy? You're saying you'd PREFER to be poor? Centuries of human history shows that most people choose not to be poor, if at all possible. Many go to great lengths to avoid it.
    • dragonwriter 8y ago
      > Centuries of human history shows that most people choose not to be poor, if at all possible. And it's not just “poor vs. not poor”; a substantial share of the people who have the capacity to be rich without much effort expend additional effort to be more rich, if there are opportunities to do so.
    • spacehome 8y ago
• ashoon 8y ago
  Checking into Kenyan living wage numbers from a few sources, it looks like this would be no more than 10%-15% of a living wage.
• aaavl2821 8y ago
  I'm not sure if this played into the researchers decisions, but giving a small but meaningful amount of money to very low income people allows you to increase the size and duration of a study for a given level of research funding. many low wage workers live on a dollar a day or less, I think wages for textile workers in Vietnam for ex are $2 a day, and poverty levels in Africa are even lower If instead they gave $40k / year to people in the US, they could only fund 625 person-years. So this design would limit the ability to predict how UBI would work in the US, but 1) provides help to those who need it most and 2) maximizes your sample size
  • p1esk 8y ago
    So after spending $25M we still won't know if UBI would work in the US. And we won't know if UBI works for middle class.