Universal basic income will get another test, this time in Kenya.
GiveDirectly will provide 6,000 rural Kenyans with $0.75 per day for the next dozen years.
That’s about half the adult income in Kenyan villages, according to Omidyar Network, which provided almost $500,000 towards the $30 million pilot.
The premise of universal basic income — that money to meet basic needs reduces the stress of poverty or under- and unstable employment — is being tested from Finland to San Francisco.
Tesla’s Elon Musk last week said such support is necessary because, “There will be fewer and fewer jobs that a robot cannot do better.”
In Kenya, basic income addresses not only poverty but “premature deindustrialization” in a region where globalization and automation mean manufacturing jobs may never come.
Photo credit: Amit Dave/Reuters
