Co-founder Paul Niehaus talked about the saying “teach a man to fish…” in a lively conversation with Tiny Spark podcast’s Amy Costello. Also this week, the World Bank and its President Jim Yong Kim continued to advocate for cash transfers to the poor as an effective policy following their report last week. And in basic […]
Blog -
Candid thoughts from staff, donors, and recipients on our work and the broader movement towards cash transfers.
Uncategorized
Taking on inequality – Cash in the News
This week the World Bank released a comprehensive report on fighting global poverty and increasing global prosperity. One of their six policy recommendations: cash transfers to poor families. In a speech, World Bank President Jim Yong Kim repeated the call for cash in policy proposals. In India top economist Arvind Subramanian voiced his support for […]
Uncategorized
Easier simply – Cash in the News
In a video on technological unemployment, Robert Reich concludes, “Interest in a basic income is surging,” before describing our pilot and it’s ability to produce rigorous evidence on the impact of a basic income. Outside the United States, The Economist described how cash can help solve another of the world’s pressing problems: the refugee crisis. […]
Uncategorized
With these milestones reached – Cash in the News
This week, we announced new details on our basic income pilot, including the size of the pilot, the study design, and the timeline: that we are preparing to begin payments to an initial pilot village in late October. The announcement was subsequently covered by Business Insider and Basic Income News. This weekend NPR separately reported […]
Uncategorized
New details on our basic income pilot
We have good news and more details to share on our work to launch a first-of-its-kind test of a basic income guarantee. Thousands of donors have come together to support the effort, contributing over $11 million since April and bringing total commitments to the project to $21 million, with $9 million to go to fully […]
Uncategorized
Bajillions of aid dollars – Cash in the News
From the GiveDirectly blog, co-founder Paul Niehaus writes about a recent paper on the long-term impacts of cash transfers, commenting, “A study like this from the US is news.” Commentary on using direct cash grants to help refugees also appeared this week in The New York Times, with a thorough investigation of how cash is […]
Uncategorized
However they choose – Cash in the News
Co-founder Michael Faye appeared this weekend on CCTV America. When asked if GiveDirectly considered putting constraints on our transfers he replied, “For a long time we’ve thought that we needed to put constraints on the poor for what they could use the money for. And the reality is that poverty itself puts constraints on the […]
Uncategorized
Comments on participation figures
We are pleased that Business Insider has corrected several aspects of this afternoon’s piece on our basic income experiment. The original claimed that the project could run into “a fatal problem” if some people choose not to participate, which is incorrect. It is actually quite common for some people to opt not to participate in […]
Uncategorized
A sizeable multiplier effect — Cash in the News
Two recent studies released by Unicef’s Office of Research-Innocenti show the positive effects of cash transfers in Africa, on both increased income as well as improvements to families’ overall livelihoods. In the UK, the debate on basic income continues to pick up, with major Labour leaders expressing interest in the idea. GIVEDIRECTLY IN THE NEWS […]
Uncategorized
Does security make people relax – Cash in the News
This week, co-founder Paul Niehaus sat down with Inc.’s Kimberly Weisul to talk cash transfers, evidence, and basic income. On basic income he told Kimberly that in our pilot we’ll be testing things like: “does security make people relax or… take more risks?” Quartz also covered the idea of time-use and basic income this week, […]