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,...
20 September, 2009