Shamus Khan, “The marriage of poverty and inequality.”

SUMMARY: This article focuses on poverty and inequality, discussing how poverty puts people in a condition in which they cannot make meaningful choices. “Instead, we might look to policies like a guaranteed basic income or a negative income tax, in which we give people money and treat them with the dignity their humanity entitles them to. … Not only would it help those who are suffering get by, but rather than treating them like social degenerates, it would trust and empower them to make their own financial decisions. Given how much responsibility the more fortunate among us have for the problems plaguing the poor, it is the least our society can do.” The author, Shamus Khan is an associate professor of sociology at Columbia University. He is the author of Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s School.

Shamus Khan, “The marriage of poverty and inequality: Who is responsible when people don’t have enough?Al Jazeera America. February 20, 2014.

Shaun Loney, "Minimum income can end poverty"

Image: Bank of Montreal (bmo.com)

[Craig Axford]

A guaranteed annual income targeting the 100,000 citizens of Manitoba that are currently living below the after tax low-income cutoff would cost about $1.2 billion.  According to this article, with a willing federal partner the province that was home to the 1970s Minicome experiment could make it happen.

Shaun Loney, “Minimum income can end poverty”, Winnipeg Free Press, March 1, 2014

Hollie Slade Staff, “Give Directly's Breakthrough 'Free Money' Model Grows As Evidence Mounts.”

Hollie Slade, Forbes

Hollie Slade, Forbes

This article discusses how the charity, Give Directly, which has an extremely simple model find poor people and give them money, has grown in success. Although GiveDirectly has received increasing attention, this article, like most other articles on GiveDriectly does not make the following connection: GiveDirectly essentially give recipients a one-time basic income. The success of GiveDriectly provides favorable evidence for basic income.

Hollie Slade Staff, “Give Directly’s Breakthrough ‘Free Money’ Model Grows As Evidence Mounts.Forbes, 2/10/2014.