20 Sep No strings attached

When German aid workers proposed a basic income support program in Otjivero, an impoverished, disease-ridden, hard-drinking village in Namibia, critics scoffed.  “They’ll just drink more,” one predicted. But a year into the program, which distributes $100 Namibian (roughly $14.15 Canadian) per month to each of Otjivero’s 961 residents, school attendance has soared, public health improved, and crime dropped. Spiegel Online International reports:

The basic income scheme doesn’t work like charity, but like a constitutional right. Under the plan, every citizen, rich or poor, would be entitled to it starting at birth. There would be no poverty test, no conditions and, therefore, no social bureaucracy. And no one would be told what he or she is permitted to do with the money.

A report on the project says economic activity in the village has grown by 10 percent. $178 million Canadian would extend the basic income scheme nationwide, and could be funded through Namibia’s tax system by increasing the value-added tax a few percent.

Hattip: Arts & Letters Daily.