It's almost unfathomable from a Western perspective that this could cover someone's basic living expenses for a year.
That is, at least partially, because it can't cover someone's basic living expenses for a year. According to the World Bank, the global poverty line was US$1.90/day in 2015, after adjusting for purchasing power.[0] This amounts to $694/year or roughly $57/month. Of course, while it is possible that, after adjusting for purchasing power, those 2280 shillings amount to $60 or more of purchasing power.
I think most Western grocery bills amount to more than $60/person/month; never mind shelter and clothing. And yet, for all of our society's wealth, I wouldn't be surprised if the average Kenyan had a greater net worth than the average American. Without much wealth to speak of, access to debt is likely to be greatly limited.
Are you suggesting that the article is mistaken for calling this amount a basic income?
> The nonprofit is in the process of registering roughly 40 more villages with a total of 6,000 adult residents, giving those people a guaranteed, 12-year-long, poverty-ending income. An additional 80 villages, with 11,500 residents all together, will receive a two-year basic income. With this initiative, GiveDirectly — with an office in New York and funded in no small part by Silicon Valley — is starting the world’s first true test of a universal basic income.
In any case, the basic income is big enough to give people a lot more freedom and security than they had before. It's empowering.
Young people and whole villages can use it to bootstrap: things like proper cell service, internet, and healthy food become affordable where before they were not.
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GiveDirectly is my charity of choice right now. I have a $1000 monthly recurring with them.
The difference in cost of living between San Francisco and rural Kenya is vast. The upshot is that an amount that many of us here on HN can handle is life changing for a lot of people on the other end.
I live in a co-op, so I save more than that every month compared to many of my friends in rent alone, and still we all have ridiculously comfortable lives.
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Poverty exists here too, but a lot of it's entrenched and intractable. It has complex causes like bad urban design, bad schools, and political gridlock. It's hard to create improvement with a donation. It requires creative activism.
Rural Kenya and Uganda, on the other hand, have lots of communities full of bright young people where the main thing holding them back really is just an abject lack of resources.
That means there's an opportunity, and I think GiveDirectly is the best organization right now to take it.
- They are effective. They don't do virtue signaling. They don't helicopter in, build a cinderblock schoolhouse, and then pose for photos with smiling kids. They measure outcomes.
- They are efficient. They stick to cash transfers, the most direct way of giving. They track and advertise the fraction of their income that they lose to corruption and overhead. Most charities are worse on those metrics and don't talk about them.
- They are rational. They don't do sob stories. They don't spam. They are run like a startup, by economists.
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Be an activist locally. Be a donor globally. Many of us are extremely lucky and, by global standards, powerful. Wield it well :)
Yes. The region of Kenya described in the article is the Western part of the country near Lake Victoria. The national average monthly consumption per person in Kenya is 9,237 shillings.[0] 42% of the population of Kenya lives below the poverty line.[1] It is not a stretch to say that the poverty line in Kenya is going to be at least 6000 shillings a month, most likely closer to 7-8000 shillings per month. The 2280 shillings per month is great but it isn't a life-changing amount for a region where average monthly consumption is in the 6-8k shillings a month range. [0] It will most likely bring the poorest in this region up to the median level of wealth enjoyed by their neighbours.
Am I interpreting the data correctly to say this?: The 2280 shillings may provide (or very nearly provide) a poverty-ending income level in one of the poorest regions of Kenya relative to the local standard for poverty, however, this amount would be below the national standard poverty line. Or is that this amount eliminates extreme poverty but not all poverty?
I didn't see the specific region named in the NYT article.
The poorest regions of Kenya are the arid northern regions (per the Daily Nation article I linked above). Admittedly, I want to take that article with a grain of salt, but it does make sense to me that the most difficult regions to farm would be the poorest. This region near Lake Victoria probably around the middle of the pack when it comes to ranking regions of Kenya from rich to poor.
2280 shillings is about 28-38% of the amount needed to get above the (absolute) poverty line, with the true number likely being closer to the middle or lower end of that range. It likely brings the people whom they chose out of poverty and around on-par with their just-above-poverty neighbours but not much more. I'm inclined to believe that they chose a region of Kenya where there was a good mix of people living just below the poverty line and people living just above the poverty line for exactly this reason.
I'm not sure about the distinction between extreme poverty, regular poverty and a national standard poverty line (in Kenya). When so much of your population is in absolute poverty, I don't think that a national standard line makes much sense. It does, of course, make more sense in the developed world where shelter alone will cost more money than the median Kenyan spends in a year; the median Kenyan is not below the global poverty line.
From the NYT article:
Kogelo, where Obama’s father was born, is just 20 miles from the village, which lies close to the banks of Lake Victoria. (This is the first village mentioned)
We took off at dawn from Kisumu, a bustling industrial city on the banks of Lake Victoria, and followed a two-lane highway to Bondo, a small trading city filled with cattle, bicycles and roadside food stands. From there, we turned inland from the lake and drove into a lush agricultural region. (This is the second village mentioned)
All across the villages of western Kenya, it was clear to me just how much aid money was wasted on unnecessary stuff.
That is, at least partially, because it can't cover someone's basic living expenses for a year. According to the World Bank, the global poverty line was US$1.90/day in 2015, after adjusting for purchasing power.[0] This amounts to $694/year or roughly $57/month. Of course, while it is possible that, after adjusting for purchasing power, those 2280 shillings amount to $60 or more of purchasing power.
I think most Western grocery bills amount to more than $60/person/month; never mind shelter and clothing. And yet, for all of our society's wealth, I wouldn't be surprised if the average Kenyan had a greater net worth than the average American. Without much wealth to speak of, access to debt is likely to be greatly limited.
[0] http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2015/10/04/wo...