In an interview with Vox, Melinda Gates mentions cash as a well-researched and effective anti-poverty intervention. Elsewhere, in basic income news, Eduardo Porter, in a New York Times story about Hillary Clinton’s policy to fight poverty in the US proposes a universal basic income for kids and a French legislative report announces a plan for running basic income pilots in France.
CASH TRANSFER NEWS
1. Melinda Gates on why, despite everything, the world just keeps getting better
Vox, Zack Beauchamp, October 21, 2016
Melinda Gates: There are very good models that have come out of places like Mexico and Latin America on direct transfers and cash benefits. And there’s great research on how they work — and they work incredibly well, particularly for women. The reason I’m so excited about this for women is that women are at the center of the family often, and we know that every marginal dollar they get in their hands, they put two dollars back into their family. Those cash benefits would do all the right things in terms of girls’ education or financial services.
2. Investing in girls could unlock billions of dollars for national economies – U.N. agency
Business Insider / Reuters, Zoe Tabary, October 20, 2016
It said an estimated 47,700 girls are married before the age of 18 every day, and that three in four girl laborers are unpaid. The report’s recommendations included providing cash transfers to poor families to encourage them to keep their daughters in school longer by helping to meet the costs of education.
3. China plays crucial role in global poverty eradication (archive link, May 2023)
Mareeg, Bert Hofman, World Bank’s Country Director for China, October 19, 2016
China has set the ambitious goal to eliminate extreme poverty during the 13th five year plan period. Already, the country has made important strides in a number of areas identified by our researchers as essential to building poor people’s earnings, including in early childhood development and nutrition, universal health coverage, universal access to quality education, cash transfers to poor families, rural infrastructure- especially roads and electrification, and progressive taxation. Key challenges ahead include further improving access to better jobs through further reforms in the household registration system, strengthening poverty data and targeting of poverty programs on the remaining poor who may be harder to reach, such as the elderly and ethnic minorities, and improving targeting and depth of China’s main social safety net, dibao.
4. Giving Every Child a Monthly Check for an Even Start
The New York Times, Eduardo Porter, October 18, 2016
She proposed to double the child tax credit to $2,000 for each child up to the age of 4 and to restructure the benefit so more of it flows to very-low-income families. Today, the credit is worth only $300 to a mother of two who earns $5,000 a year. Under Mrs. Clinton’s proposal, it could be worth $2,250.
5. Child Nutrition, Growth in Bangladesh: WB to give $1b in 3yrs
The Daily Star, October 18, 2016
Among children under five, some 5.5 million are stunted, out of whom poorer children bear a disproportionate burden of stunted growth. The WB’s investments in children’s early years in Bangladesh will support programmes to ensure child nutrition and include a conditional cash transfer programme targeted at 600,000 poor families in 43 sub-districts, it said in a statement. Kim on a two-day visit here observed End Poverty Day in Dhaka yesterday.
EFFECTIVE ALTRUISM
6. Put Your Compassion into Action
Lions Roar, Matthieu Ricard, Julia Wise, and Peter Singer, October 19, 2016
We also think about what other parents go through when they don’t have enough for their children’s basic needs. A lot of the interventions we support are targeted at children, like mosquito nets to prevent malaria or deworming treatments to treat children infected with parasites. These are effective causes, and it means a lot to me that I’m able to help keep other parents from watching their children suffer, which must be incredibly painful for parent and child alike.
BASIC INCOME
7. France: Senate Report Marks Another Milestone for Basic income
Basic Income News,, Didier Di Camillo, October 23, 2016
The parliamentary commission on basic income was initiated in May under the proposal of Socialist MP Daniel Percheron. Under the ‘mission of information’ procedure of the French senate, MPs can form an ad-hoc committee to investigate specific topics and produce non-binding recommendations. The 433 pages long report formally commits to the testing of a basic income in France, through three-year pilots involving up to 30,000 citizens.
8. A Defense of the Universal Basic Income
CATO, CATO podcast featuring Charles Murray, October 20, 2016
The Universal Basic Income is an idea with many detractors. Charles Murray is not among them.