by Karl Widerquist | Oct 23, 2010 | News
This October, ReCivitas will distribute another 30 Brazilian Reals (about US$17.93) to 77 residents of the village of Quantinga Velho in the state of Paulo, Brazil. This payment marks the second anniversary of the ReCivitas project to distribute a basic income to a widening group of residents. The project is funded entirely by private donations.
The payment is not a true basic income because it goes only to 77 people out of Brazil’s population of nearly 200 million, but it is the kind of implementation of the basic income model that is possible with access only to small private donations.
The organizers of ReCivitas see this project as a small way to take action to implement the basic income and to show how it can work. A basic income of less than $18 per month might seem insignificantly small by U.S. standards, but given the level of poverty in Quatinga Velho, this amount is very significant to those who receive it.
If you would like to donate to Recivitas, please contact ReCivitas Instituto pela Revitalizacao da Cidadania <recivitas@recivitas.org.br>
by Karl Widerquist | May 27, 2010 | News
The ReCivitas pilot project made its 19th payment in the village of Quatinga Velho, Brazil on May 8th, 2010. With this payment ReCivitas expanded the number of participants by 10 to a total of 71. The project makes a small payment of 25 Brazilian Riyals to some of the residents of a small town in the state of Sao Paulo. It is funded entirely by private donations. For more information, or if you wish to donate, go to https://www.recivitas.org.br/ or contact ReCivitas at: recivitas@recivitas.org.br.
by Diana Bashur | Aug 13, 2024 | News
As a tool that speaks to 7 out of the 17 SDGs, basic income pilots have shown transformative effects in communities. This blog post calls for a systematic consideration of this tool in social protection schemes across humanitarian, development and peacebuilding settings.
Basic income, aka universal basic income, is a periodic cash payment unconditionally delivered to all usual legal residents in a given territory on an individual basis, without means-test or work requirements, over a prolonged period of time. It is different from traditional cash transfers, which are often targeted according to vulnerability thresholds, can be conditional, are not always regular, and can take forms other than cash. These distinctions are behind the transformative effects basic income has had in communities where it was tested.
To read the full article, click here
by Guy Standing | Aug 5, 2024 | Research
By Guy Standing
In July 2024, the National Bureau of Economic Research issued a report from the researchers on an income-transfer project conducted in Illinois and Texas. It has generated global attention, with some commentators saying it undermines the case for basic income, others that it supports the case for it.
This note is a critique of the project, and one point should be made very firmly at the outset: This experiment was not a test of basic income. Anybody claiming otherwise is either unfamiliar with the concept of basic income or is being disingenuous.
To be fair on the researchers, the title of their main report refers to a ‘guaranteed income’, not a basic income. But as far as I can see none of the researchers has rebutted the interpretation by critics. Moreover, as this writer knows, having been involved in the initial discussions of the project in Stanford University, the initial researchers knew they could not do a proper basic income pilot.
To read the full article, click here.
by Scott Santens | Aug 3, 2024 | Research
The results of one of the biggest basic income experiments ever came out in July 2024, and as usual, the nuances of the findings are lost among the voices of those loudly proclaiming basic income doesn’t work. This one is the three-year pilot of Sam Altman’s that provided $1,000 a month to 1,000 people in Texas and Illinois and compared that group to a control group of 2,000 people who got $50 a month. Every participant was between the ages of 21 and 40. In this article, I will explain the nuances and how the results of this pilot provide some new info but mostly replicate the findings of previous experiments going back to the 1970s and only further demonstrate that what’s at stake here is real freedom and the perceived danger it poses to those who benefit from the widespread lack of that freedom.
To read the full article, click here.
