
A basic income experiment in Kenya - SQL2219
http://nordic.businessinsider.com/kenya-village-disproving-biggest-myth-about-basic-income-2017-12
======
blueyes
The title is misleading, because this experiment start in late 2016. Sure,
they plan to run for 12 years, but right now it's more like a 14-month
experiment. Even when the experiment is over, it will have been done on a very
small sample. In the dozens, and some will surely drop out.

Slightly misleading headline aside, I'm glad the experiment is being done,
since international aid had a lot of problems. The promise of UBI is that you
don't need huge bureaucratic infrastructure to help lots of people. Maybe all
you need is a payment system. Direct cash can put more resources in the hands
of the beneficiaries, and less in the hands of aid organizations that exist
primarily to persist.[0]

[0] [https://www.npr.org/2015/06/03/411524156/in-search-of-the-
re...](https://www.npr.org/2015/06/03/411524156/in-search-of-the-red-
cross-500-million-in-haiti-relief)

~~~
dang
Ok, we've taken twelve years out of the title above.

------
DoreenMichele
_Other research has found that people 's spending on alcohol and cigarettes
actually went down when they received direct cash transfers. Faced with a
brighter future, many people stop using temptation goods as a way to cope with
a hopeless situation, researchers have discovered. In the village GiveDirectly
is working with, interviews with nearly a dozen recipients showed that most
people have actually worked more since the study began._

Well, this is encouraging.

I am not pro basic income because I think it won't fix anything in the US
without other changes first, such as universal basic healthcare and more
affordable housing, and most discussions about basic income start from an
assumption that it will be handled at the national level. I think the current
focus on basic income actively takes attention away from things like
healthcare and housing. We already don't want to fix those things because they
are hard problems to solve. Focusing on basic income strikes me as a variation
on how so many people fantasize about winning the lottery. It seems like an
easy answer. And people would rather imagine that there is an easy answer than
wrestle with hard problems.

Like others are saying, I am unconvinced that this experiment really proves
anything about basic income. But I think this may be the first time I have
heard of a basic income experiment where the money came from elsewhere.

Maybe this approach does not further basic income. Maybe it will only provide
new models for charity. Or maybe it provides a different model for basic
income, one that puts a floor in globally and potentially starts the process
of moving towards a world government, which doesn't have to be _in place of_
national governments. It can be another layer _on top of_ them. So emergent
global order makes more sense than a top down approach to creating it.

One of the issues with basic income is the questions surrounding how it
impacts immigration. If you give all Americans $1000/mo, that makes
citizenship here an even more valuable commodity.

But if basic income starts as a global initiative to begin closing the gap
between rich and poor nations, instead of a local initiative to help the poor
within rich nations, maybe basic income can start resolving some of the
problems currently fueling immigration pressures and bring barriers down to a
more manageable level.

~~~
easytiger
> more affordable housing

The US is an incredibly cheap place to live. Go to Europe and see what you can
get for the same money.

~~~
klibertp
> The US is an incredibly cheap place to live.

From what I hear - I've never been there - this remains true only as long as
you're not ill, don't need education and are employed. In most EU countries
these things are taken care of for you, so the comparison seems a bit unfair.

~~~
philippejara
given the highlighted phrase of the parent I believe he was talking about
"live" as in housing, not general expenses.

~~~
klibertp
Ok, I didn't catch that - read and answered the post too quickly - thanks for
pointing it out, it makes sense :)

------
aaron-lebo
Interesting to hear results in the field.

My question is how does that transfer to other environments? Do the results at
$22 a month in Kenya translate to the results at $1000 a month in the US?
There's a lot more interesting things to buy with a $1000 in New York than
there is with $22 in a village in Kenya. It's also a different society,
different people. Maybe more religious, etc.

Just throwing out a stupid idea: Kenya's population is 47 million. To give all
of them $22 a month (ignoring age cutoffs), unless I'm doing the math wrong
would be just under $13 billion a year. If some really wealthy people really
want to test this, it's not impossible.

Unlike the article's repeated claim that this is the "greatest myth" (it's
really annoying how news articles editorialize with untestable statements like
that), the biggest issue is still cost. How do you realistically put together
and pay for a program that can become policy in the US? It's the 3 trillion
dollar question.

~~~
jimworm
Interesting "stupid" idea there. Is there enough incentive on either side for
a small nation to offer its entire population to scientific research for a
large one that cannot afford the failure of a similar experiment on itself?

It'd be fair to assume that a successful experiment would eventually become
self-funding and discontinued if unsuccessful. Your $13B number puts the
budget in the same ballpark as ITER; smaller than half of the foreign aid
donated by the US in 2013, an order of magnitude smaller than Project Apollo,
and less than 10% the size of the Marshall plan.

However such a project will not be able to avoid wide publicity which would
attract many "confounding factors" trying to ensure its success, or more
likely its failure.

------
snarf21
Drawing any conclusions only 1 year into a 12 year experiment seems too much,
too soon. It also doesn't seem like it is enough money to really do the
experiment if the $22/month could only pay for one child's pre-school.

The one hopeful thing I read was that it seemed to reduce alcohol usage. This
matches with most evidence of alcohol usage increasing during a recession,
etc. When things are hopeless, people cope how they can.

This does help reinforce the concept that most people need a hand up, not a
hand out. We get so little benefit from too many of our social programs today.
We need to fix things to allow people to help themselves and grow to become
self sufficient.

~~~
noobermin
Alright, I'll bite, can you give evidence of your second to last sentence?
People toss around this logic as if it is an accepted truth without any real
evidence of it.

~~~
snarf21
I'll elaborate slightly. Mainly there are stupid things like you can't be
eligible for certain programs if you have money > X in the bank. How are
people supposed to save to get on their feet again if doing so loses their
help?

We do an okay job of trying to funnel money to the people and necessities but
we focus too little on job training and development. I would love for us to
bring community projects back into the fold. Learn construction and
landscaping while fixing up a park. Let people refurbish old buildings to
create low income housing while learning the "trades". Use all the
intelligence and energy of people to create after/before school programs and
tutoring.

------
sebleon
Very heart warming article, glad to hear about empirical evidence that basic
income leads to fruitful, productive lives.

Personally, I believe that basic income would be a net good if 99% of basic
income recipients wasted money on booze, as long as there’s a 1% doing
interesting things with their lives.

~~~
jimmywanger
Before I pass judgement, I would want to see what happened to the CPI price
after basic income.

The article says that one recipient was able to buy more milk and send his kid
to school. Fine, how much does milk cost now and which kid is now unable to go
to school because his son is sitting in the seat?

You can have as much money as the government wants, but goods are a limited
resource (in the short term). Just printing money to give people more money is
not a solution.

Venezuela just hiked minimum wage up to 797,510 BSF a month. That's 79,751
dollars at the official exchange rate (which is 10 to 1). On the black market
it's about 6.50. And nothing is available on shelves.

~~~
lrem
By printing money for BI you effectively redistribute from the top half to the
bottom half. This would suck for most people here, including myself. However,
I don't think that redistribution from the bottom 99% to the top 1%, as I
believe quantitative easing turned out, is much better.

~~~
azernik
Or, you just _tax_ the top earners to pay for BI. Much more transparent.

~~~
jimmywanger
How exactly do you propose to do that? One of Facebook's founders renounced US
citizenship because of tax rates.

Again, it's only the rich who can afford to find tax havens and expensive
accountants. The middle class is stuck paying taxes.

~~~
dub4u
By renouncing citizenship he probably did the US a favor.
[http://www.philosophersbeard.org/2012/04/what-to-do-about-
ri...](http://www.philosophersbeard.org/2012/04/what-to-do-about-
rich.html?m=1) Let them decide: give some of your wealth to finance BI or else
renounce citizenship.

~~~
mantas
You'd have to ban them owning property or businesses in the country too.
Otherwise they'd just stay but without citizenship or taxes.

~~~
mcny
> You'd have to ban them owning property or businesses in the country too.
> Otherwise they'd just stay but without citizenship or taxes.

This is why we need the estate tax (Paris Hilton tax or death tax as opponents
like to say) to stay and probably increase in rate.

> For 2017, the estate and gift tax exemption is $5.49 million per individual,
> up from $5.45 million in 2016. That means an individual can leave $5.49
> million to heirs and pay no federal estate or gift tax.

This is plenty generous. We should tax any estate beyond that at a minimum of
fifty percent and close all loopholes.

I am not a big fan of income tax on businesses but I can see why we need it.

~~~
mantas
> This is why we need the estate tax (Paris Hilton tax or death tax as
> opponents like to say) to stay and probably increase in rate.

How is it relevant to giving up citizenship and owning property or company?
There's no death involved. If their children are not citizen either, they are
not hit by inheritance tax too.

> I am not a big fan of income tax on businesses but I can see why we need it.

VAT is sort of like income tax for businesses. Except it's not taxed on B2B
transactions. Which makes sense. Otherwise everybody would bring in whole
production chain in-house and we'd be left with huge conglomerates and no
SMBs.

------
mantas
This is not basic income at all.

First, people knew timespan is limited. Thus they had incentive to invest
money wisely. What would happen if they knew the money would be coming
forever?

Second, the money came from outside of the community. In Basic Income, money
comes from within the community. In true BI scheme, the caregiver dude would
be donor and paying to his neighbours.

~~~
Matumio
They are funding it for 12 years. That's pretty close to forever. Any
political system can change its policy over such a timespan.

Your second point is valid: this is additional money from outside. But the
word "donor" would not apply in a true BI scheme. It would be seen as
obligation to the community (via taxes), in the same way you pay for public
infrastructure, because it adds a value to the community as a whole. (If it
wasn't seen that way, it would probably not be implemented in the first
place.)

~~~
mantas
12 years is not close to forever at all. Humans live for much longer than that
and they know they've to plan beyond that.

Of course, even if they were promised money forever, some people would call
bullshit and still plan ahead. But quite a few people do believe existing
system, without declared timeout, are permanent. Especially if they were born
in the system and haven't experienced any alternatives. But building system
based on assumption that humans won't believe it's permanent would be kinda
dumb :)

Donor is exactly correct word for net-loss in BI scheme. You give up part of
your wealth and get nothing in return.

You know what you get back in return for your taxes. Like infrastructure or
school for your kids. Welfare, when done correctly, is insurance. You know you
can get in trouble, thus you pitch in. You have a chance to get in trouble and
cash out.

But once "welfare queens" pop up, people are pissed off. Since they feel like
donors instead of paying insurance.

What adds value to community is, for example, funding a local theatre,
newspaper or building a park. You pay and you get something in return. You may
pay proportionally more than other members of community. But you still get
something in return nevertheless.

Meanwhile BI doesn't add value by itself. Nor it gives anything in return to
those who pay.

~~~
T2_t2
> 12 years is not close to forever at all. Humans live for much longer than
> that and they know they've to plan beyond that.

Depends on the country and the quartile. Read the program, and they target the
poorest of the poor in Kenya. I'm not really sure that the poorest in Kenya
have a life expectancy approaching that of westerners. Happy to be corrected!

~~~
mantas
How short should life expectancy be to consider 12 years as "forever"? 35? As
in, you grow up and got 12-ish years to live?

By the way, Kenya's life expectancy is over 60, varies from source to source.
One could argue that this is life expectancy for people born today and older
generations have it much shorter. But it was over 50 since late 60s! I'm
pretty sure 20-something expecting to live to 50 or 60 do not consider 12
years as "forever". Nor do 40-something who expects to beat the statistics.

[https://www.theguardian.com/global-
development/datablog/2013...](https://www.theguardian.com/global-
development/datablog/2013/dec/12/kenya-how-changed-independence-data)

------
kolbe
I thought a fundamental characteristic of basic income was that is was
redistributed wealth from within a community. This is money that comes from
outside Kenya. It's an influx of wealth into their community. And shows very
little about how effective it would be to take $1000 from someone to give to
her neighbor.

------
exabrial
Was this a closed system? As in: the money was taken from richer members of
the community and given to poorer members? Or was the money brought in from
the outside?

~~~
SubiculumCode
The largest complaint against basic income or government social programs
generally is that most people will not use the income productively, and that
it would lead to increases in vice and decreases in productivity. This, not
being a closed system, does mean that the local economies are getting outside
money injected into circulation, but it is a stretch to think that people
would act differently (i.e. become less productive) in a closed system. In
terms of rights or wrongs of income redistribution, I'd note that a lot of
laws (laws that allow rentiers) and taxes (corporate tax cuts) are designed to
redistribute wealth upwards too.

~~~
AdrianB1
Can you explain how corporate tax cuts redistribute wealth upwards? Such a
redistribution would imply that someone is paying taxes and some wealthy guys
would receive those money, which does not happen anywhere, at any time.

~~~
SubiculumCode
Well usually when building these kind of tax structures, governments think on
how much "revenue" they want to generate, and who to tax to get it. If
lowering the taxes for one guy, another guy gets to pay more in taxes.

------
neilwilson
When is a basic income not a basic income? When it's a basic income
experiment. The whole thing suffers from a collosal fallacy of composition.

[https://medium.com/modern-money-matters/is-basic-income-
basi...](https://medium.com/modern-money-matters/is-basic-income-basically-
finnished-babadac2d29b)

------
epynonymous
this is an interesting and difficult problem to solve, i was reading an
interview from sam altman along the same lines recently, not sure if he's
working on this one, but seems the overall goal is to reduce poverty. this
study presents some basic data about this hypothesis, but the sample size
seems too small. if they widened the sample size, i'm sure there would be more
abuse of the system. one thing that seems difficult is how you measure the
success of this program, is it the people that you've moved out of poverty?
and what's the funding model for this, i don't see many details about how this
can be sustained for long periods of time or how this could be extended to
much larger portions of people.

------
isaac_is_goat
This is not UBI, this is charity. Big difference. I would be willing to give
22$ a month to a Kenyan person in need from my own personal income. Forcing
society to do this through point of gun at government enforcement is wrong and
I will never support it.

~~~
ricardobeat
1) What's the difference for the receiver?

2) It only works as 'charity' between a vast income gap like you have here.
Within local communities it's unlikely that many people have enough money and
the disposition to support all the others.

~~~
mantas
> 1) What's the difference for the receiver?

We already know giving money to poor people makes them happy. The question is
how the whole community reacts to UBI

> 2) It only works as 'charity' between a vast income gap like you have here.
> Within local communities it's unlikely that many people have enough money
> and the disposition to support all the others.

Looks like Kenya have pretty high GINI coefficient [0] inside of it's regions
as well as nation-wide. Thus there's wealth to be moved around inside of the
country or even it's regions.

Many western countries have much lower GINI coefficient, so following this
logic, there'd be even less people to share money with other people. Which is
why BI opponents think it won't ever work.

[0] [http://inequalities.sidint.net/kenya/abridged/gini-
coefficie...](http://inequalities.sidint.net/kenya/abridged/gini-coefficient/)

~~~
ricardobeat
Charity doesn’t move wealth around and never will. I think you’re
underestimating both the motives, breadth and cost of BI.

~~~
mantas
I totally agree that charity by itself doesn't move wealth. But $100 for the
receiver is $100 wether it's charity or BI for the giver. What I'm saying is,
we know BI works for receiver. The question is if donor side is willing to
foot the bill. I'm well aware of BI scale and motives and that's why I don't
think it'd work. Aside from when it approaches charity-like situation.

In day-to-day case, BI would be either working people sharing most of their
wealth with the rest on massive scale. Which would cause uproar of the working
people. Or charity-like situation where working people would just drop some
breadcrumbs for the peasants. Which wouldn't be great either.

------
charlescearl
Wait. Did anyone run a long term empirical study of how giving tax cuts to the
0.1% of income earners would benefit the bottom 99% before enacting regressive
taxation policies? No? Then why the F must we devote so much energy to
justifying giving every day humans basic services. I think that we just need
to get over and be done with the propaganda of the oligarchs.

~~~
lumberjack
What makes you think that basic income isn't "propaganda of the oligarchs"?
Have you stopped to think what it would actually mean?

To me is seems like an attempt to retain the current power structures and the
current status of the contemporary elite, by trying to retain an outdated
economic system past the point when the vast majority of people will end up
completely cut of from it.

~~~
Balgair
UBI is not a panacea, we know that. Every single thing invented by we-mortals
has flaws and it's a matter of choosing alternatives and making do with 'less-
bad' options. Will UBI be better? Tests like the OP are here to find out. But
we know that the current demo-capitalistic system has flaws and UBI may be a
way to get to 'less-bad', so a test is warranted.

That said, I think a UBI-like scheme will have HUGE unintended consequences in
the _dating /marriage_ market. Many/all potential partners/mates will no
longer have an 'easy' way to signal their potential marriage value outside of
physical fitness and proven virility/fertility. For a lot of the population
you'll have taken away a key factor in assessing potential marriage value. I
think that'll tend towards polygamy/andry in a few decades' time.

~~~
Domenic_S
Maybe I’m misunderstanding you, but I don’t see how this makes sense. UBI is
the lower limit, not the upper limit.

~~~
Balgair
Thereby raising the 'floor' of one aspect of the marriage market. Essentially,
potential partners may 'discount' that parameter if the floor is high enough.

------
danjoc
If UBI works, I wonder, where is the crypto coin to prove it?

~~~
Matumio
here you go:
[https://duniter.org/en/introduction/](https://duniter.org/en/introduction/)

~~~
danjoc
That requires work to receive coins? If so, it doesn't really sound like UBI.

------
grahamburger
Here's the only UBI experiment I'm interested in seeing:

1\. Take a bunch of people

2\. Make them all give you 20% if their income for X years

3\. Give them all back ((total money in) - (overhead costs to run the
program)) / (total participants)

I suspect it would be difficult to find people who would participate
willingly.

~~~
AdrianB1
It is done in parts of the world, it's called taxes and you get back
"services" (sometimes you get something, sometimes you get nothing) and the
20% is around 50-70% in Europe.

~~~
grahamburger
So - why not do the experiment? You think people would go for it?

~~~
AdrianB1
No, they would not. Unless you ask them at gunpoint (or threaten with jail,
that's the same for me) they will not, it does not make sense after you lived
in communism for a lot of time to go back that route.

------
suyoshi
Anyone interested in basic income should check out
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