Written by: Mônica Dallari and Eduardo Matarazzo Suplicy
After the article “A Critical Poverty Eradication Experiment in Kenya”, published in the last issue of the BIEN News Flash, we now offer this complement with the interviews of the beneficiaries of the UBI in the rural villages of Kenya.
Stimulus to work
Richard O., 43, is a father of nine children. The couple and the eldest son, aged 18, receive a basic income. Richard paid school fees for his children to study and bought goats, $150 and $200 USD each. He also bought a cow for $250, which provides milk for the family. Now he wants a bull, which costs $300. Richard says basic income has encouraged him to work harder: “when there is opportunity, ambition grows”, he explains. “The benefit has created the possibility for people to dream of a better life.” Richard is dreaming.
Empowered women
Jane M. feels stronger now with basic income because she has the power to decide how the best use of her benefit. She and her husband have the same power in the negotiations. She felt very good to gain independence. Jane says that the basic income comes along with the responsibility of making the best use of resources, for being unconditional. As a seamstress, she receives $0.50 a day. She participates in a group of 10 women in the village who help each other. Once a month, they all get together and deliver $10 to one of them. By relay, one of the beneficiaries gets $100 each. Jane waits her turn, she wants to invest in her own business.
New house
Edson O.N. was happy for all the villages receiving Universal Basic Income (UBI), not just selected ones. Married, now 31 years old with two children, when he does not have occasional jobs in the field, he helps his wife sell used clothes in popular markets and gets $1. He lives in a house with a mud wall and a straw roof in his father’s terrain. He is raising money to acquire his own land and build a home for his family. He estimates that will need $1,000. The steel roof tiles, for the capture of rainwater, alone cost $210.
Reduction of domestic violence
Kennedy A.A. realized that violence and stress within families have greatly reduced with the introduction of the UBI. He is the elder of the village, a joint judge and chief of the community, not necessarily the eldest. He is often called in neighbors’ quarrels and family disputes. He is married at 43 years old with three daughters. He says: “when there is money, conflicts decrease. Men do not come back home angry and frustrated. The benefit brought peace to the families. Children, who grew humiliated in old and torn clothes, began to wear decent clothes. Access to food and medicines has improved. Everyone starts to know the feeling of well-being.”
No piper water
Nilton is 12 years old and Elvis is six years old. They are brothers and were carrying for the second time in the day buckets of water. The houses in the village don’t have sewage or piper water. In Kenya, 37 percent of the population do not have access to drinking water. Nilton and Elvis are responsible for getting water for the family. They walk about 400 meters to the reservoir. Nilton carries two buckets of 10 liters and Elvis two of 5 liters. When it rains, those who can take advantage of rainwater with the use of gutters in the steel roof, a privilege for only a few families.
Community teacher
Mary A. is illiterate. In the village, only 8 percent of the villagers know how to read and write. In Kenya, illiteracy reaches 22 percent of the population, but the prospect is that literacy will improve with the introduction of UBI. Now, no child leaves school. They all have food when they return home. In the village, no one else sleeps hungry. With three grandchildren in elementary education, Mary helps pay a teacher hired by the community. Since few teachers are offered by the government, parents get together to pay more teachers.
Prosperity
Aggrey O., 56, raises five children alone. Everyone studies. The money was primarily used to pay the high school of the two older children. Annuities can range from $300 to $550. As a farmer, Aggrey earns $1.50 a day. When the yield from his garden is very good, he can earn up to $3 a day. For him, life has improved a lot with basic income. To live it is necessary to have prosperity. He wants to send his children to university. He says that Felix, the youngest at eight years old, is very clever. “Why do I desire to send the children to university? The same way you left Brazil and are here for having studied, I also want my children to go to Brazil because they studied.”
Precarious health
Jane A., 76, is a widow and lives with her sister. She spends the money on medicine. Lack of sanitation causes many diseases. According to data from “Doctors Without Borders,” in 2016 there were 216 million cases of malaria in the world, with 445,000 deaths. Sub-Saharan Africa is responsible for 90 percent of the cases. Malaria is the leading cause of death in Kenya, followed by tuberculosis, a consequence of the HIV virus, which affects 1.5 percent of the population. Violence against women is one of the main causes of the spread of HIV.
Polygamy and the Marriage Law
Ruth O., 34, is the second wife of a bigamy husband. She has three daughters and takes care of five orphans: a nephew and four children from her husband’s first wife, who died in 2011. As the wives get along well, which is rare in these situations, Ruth decided to raise the children when their mother passed away. Frequently in cases of polygamy, wives live in separate houses with their children, but they share the same family terrain. The relations are not easy, the treatments are differentiated, a lot of rivalry arises between the children and the women. The first wife has certain privileges and rights, for being the only relationship officially recognized. There is no law regulating the registration of other polygamous relations.
Although the 2010 Constitution does not provide for polygamy, in 2014 the Matrimonial Law was approved by the National Assembly and the Senate, and sanctioned by the president, which legalized marriage as a “monogamous or polygamous union” between men and women. The women’s claim to allow the first wife to be consulted about the convenience of her husband having a second wife was rejected by deputies of the situation and the opposition. Polygamy is valid only for men.
No tools
Victor O., 24, has a son. He lives in his mother’s house along with five brothers. He is an electrician, he repairs cell phones, radios, and electrical materials, but he has no work. Victor stopped his studies in seventh grade. Victor regrets he has no tools to perform the repairs, which ends up restricting the work a lot. He has no offer of service, so he goes from house to house. He can do three or four services a month and earns about $4 a month.
Cemetery at home
Mary S., 48, has seven children and is the second wife of polygamous husband Joseph S.O., who died in 2010 and is buried in the family backyard. In the same terrain are the houses of the two wives. According to custom, the cemetery is reserved only for those who have no family. In fact, it is the solution to bury people who die at home without any kind of medical care. In 2017, according to data from the Kenyan government, of the 190,000 deaths, 100,000 occurred in hospitals and 90,000 in the residences.
As reported before, the Indian State of Sikkim, through the political party Sikkim Democratic Front (SDF), presently holding power, is “committed to bringing Universal Basic Income” (UBI). The state is currently under an electoral process, which is set to terminate until the 27th of May. Other parties are contending the election (e.g.: Sikkim Krantikari Morcha (SKM)), but these are unlikely to overthrow SDF, according to polls.
SDF officials are considering funding an UBI policy with hydropower revenue which, however, does not come without controversy, since some of these installations have affected sensitive ecosystems and the people dependent on them (the Lepchas). According to Tseten Lepcha, working President of the Affected Citizens of Teesta (ACT), in Sikkim, at least one of the largest hydropower projects are not well equipped with transmission lines, which limits the amount of electricity able to flow out of the installation, curbing its rentability (and, therefore, the available funds for the future UBI). The ATC also sustains that the regional government hasn’t taken due provisions to limit environmental and social impacts in the affected areas, which is definitely a contested issue with government officials (who believe all those issues have been taken care of).
One of these provisions has to due with the area of cultivable land that has gone under water, from which people from the affected areas drew their subsistence. That due to the existing power plants, a problem which will be aggravated by around 20 more hydropower projects still in planning. Locals are concerned about this issue, which directly affects their livelihood. However, they generally support the idea of a UBI being implemented in Sikkim.
A short video can be watched, summarizing the content around UBI’s proposal in Sikkim:
Back in September 2016, Scott Santens gave an interview, published in Forbes Magazine, which he now reads on this podcast. Near the end of the podcast, Santens says what might summarize his position on the relationship between basic income and work:
If we truly do want a free society, we should care about making a free market for labour, and we should recognize that the work people choose to do voluntarily, is the work people do best.
Andrew Yang, the only Democrat presidential candidate to the US elections in 2020 announcing a basic income policy in his platform, has been on CNN Presidential Town Hall, solo featured on the latest 14th of April.
At this televised campaign event, Yang was clear about his intentions to help Americans transition through these present times of great transformation and uncertainty. Central to his campaign is the Freedom Dividend policy (unconditional 1000$/month for every adult starting at 18) which, according to him, will be a key policy to help people to retrain, gain other skills and stay active in entering this new age of automation. He points out other potential benefits to be gained from the Freedom Dividend, such as deep reduction of bureaucracy, paternalism in social services, stigma for beneficiaries and social security running costs. He also referred the increased leverage power accruing to individual workers and unions, if they had such a thing as the Freedom Dividend to fall back onto.
In the show, he was faced with most of the important questions asked to any presidential candidate, namely related to policies in economy, employment, health, education, housing, drug use and possession and gun control. The environment was, however, a clear absence in this CNN’s Town Hall show, which could be an indication of what really are the priorities in the minds of American people. Specifically, speaking about the employment issue, Yang was direct to say that “the goal should not be to save jobs, the goal should be to make our lives better”, which is very different from what other Democratic candidates (e.g.: Bernie Sanders) are saying (Federal Jobs Guarantee). Nevertheless, Andrew Yang is certain that the Freedom Dividend “does not solve all problems for all people, but it will move us in the right direction”.
Faced with the inevitable question on how to pay for the Freedom Dividend, Yang underlines the importance of “we have to go where the money is”. As an experienced entrepreneur, and specifically one related to technology, Yang has an idea about how much money tech giants (e.g.: Facebook, Uber, Google, Amazon) have, and how much they owe in federal taxes. So, according to him, effectively taxing these companies will make up for the most part of the Freedom Dividend cost, plus any savings possible from eliminating obsolete social benefit schemes (due to the implementation of the dividend).
He also attributes the rise of hate ideologies (e.g.: white supremacy) as a result of a dysfunctional economy, because poor, stressed people are easier to scare into these hateful discourses. Removing, therefore, “the economic boot off people’s throats” will definitely help diminish these polarizing hate agendas which, according to him “have no place in our society”. Yang also believes the Freedom Dividend will improve people’s chances of getting better housing conditions (although refers municipal intervention as important, in order to provide for affordable housing) and better school performance. On the latter, he cites research that says 75% of kid’s performance at school depends on non-school factors, among which one of the most important is economic condition. Hence, the Freedom Dividend can also help kids learn more, and better.
The Universal Basic Income (UBI) Lab Sheffield, a campaigning group working from the city of Sheffield, northern UK, has written to all the 84 city councilors in the region, as a move to have them support a local basic income experiment.
The main driver behind the initiative is to “ensure that nobody is economically left out, and that nobody lives in poverty”, in the words of Sam Gregory. This basic income experiment, as proposed by the UBI Lab Sheffield, would be applied in one of three ways:
Removing conditions from social benefits from around 4000 ill or disabled people (while another 4000 people group act as control group) (costing around 18 million £);
Paying 130 £/month (Note 1) to 4000 adults living next to each other (for instance, in a neighbourhood) (costing around 23 million £);
Applying different tax and benefits rules to a 4000 people group, whereas one subset would get, unconditionally, 6000 £/year, disabled or retired people would receive benefits above that level, and children would benefit from a smaller amount. Costing 60 million £, the test pilot would be funded by a new income tax (applied only within that 4000 people group), ensuring that all those earning less than 25000 £/year would see a net raise in their income.
This experiment is set to last for three years, according to the UBI Lab Sheffield’s design strategy. The idea is to measure several outputs, including but not limited to participation in the (paid) workforce, such as broader activity and personal care. Interviews and other qualitative studies would also be a part of all options, as described above.
Campaigners consider Sheffield a promising basic income test ground, but recognize that the city has no funding options for such an experiment. So, it would have to depend on central government financing, which can be more difficult, considering all the political agitation at the moment due to the Brexit-related issues (Sheffield was one of Britain’s cities to marginally vote pro-Brexit). However, the Labour Party is strong in Sheffield (holds 53 out of 84 seats in the city council), and its candidates for the upcoming elections in May already asked UBI Lab Sheffield for information. Sheffield Green Party is also supporting an UBI experiment in the city, as part of its campaign to the city council elections.
Note 1 – The National Living Wage in the UK is around 1300 £/month (calculated from hourly living rate for workers aged 25 and over).
Ruth O., 34, is the second wife of a bigamy husband. She has three daughters and takes care of five orphans: a nephew and four children from her husband’s first wife, who died in 2011. As the wives get along well, which is rare in these situations, Ruth decided to raise the children when their mother passed away. Frequently in cases of polygamy, wives live in separate houses with their children, but they share the same family terrain. The relations are not easy, the treatments are differentiated, a lot of rivalry arises between the children and the women. The first wife has certain privileges and rights, for being the only relationship officially recognized. There is no law regulating the registration of other polygamous relations.
