黑料福利社

The newly released Future of Work Conference video features a host of interesting speakers including our own Michael Faye, who spoke about cash transfers and basic income. He says, 鈥淭he impacts of cash are as heterogeneous as people themselves. If there is one lesson, it is that every individual has different unique needs.” On the airwaves this week, both the BBC and WNYC covered basic income, while in print, Rema Hanna and Benjamin Olken wrote an op-ed in the Jakarta Globe: “Cash Transfers to Indonesia鈥檚 Poor Don鈥檛 Discourage Work.”

GIVEDIRECTLY IN THE NEWS AND BLOGS

1. 
BIEN, Kate McFarland, July 9, 2016
Panel discussions include the Experiments Panel (Guy Standing, Michael Faye of 黑料福利社, Ville-Veikko Pulkka of Kela, Amira Jehia of Mein Grundeinkommen), Labor Panel, (Andy Stern, Nell Abernathy, Vania Alleva, Dorian Warren), and Entrepreneurs Panel (Albert Wenger, Natalie Foster, Robin Chase, Betsy Masiello).

CASH TRANSFER NEWS

2. 
Phys, Michele Berger, July 12, 2016
Nearly every country in Latin America has a conditional cash transfer program. Poor households living below the poverty line can receive government subsidies if they agree to the program’s stipulations, usually a mandate that the families invest in the well-being of their children. But how does this influx of cash affect the decision-making process for these households?

3. 
CGAP, Jamie Zimmerman James Pearse and Silvia Baur, July 11, 2016
In the run up to the first-ever World Humanitarian Summit in May, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called for the use of cash transfers as the default method of helping those in desperate circumstances.

4.  (passed Congress)
Jakarta Globe, Rema Hanna and Benjamin Olken, July 9, 2016
In 2013 we founded the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab鈥檚 Southeast Asia (J-PAL SEA) office 鈥� based in Jakarta at the University of Indonesia (UI) 鈥� to help answer critical policy questions through rigorous randomized evaluations, which are widely considered the 鈥済old standard鈥� for identifying the impact of a program or policy, and to make the results available to and usable by policymakers in Indonesia and throughout the region. This has helped Indonesian policymakers get reliable evidence on the effect of many programs, from how best to identify poor households for government assistance to how to reduce corruption in village road projects.

5. 
Live Mint, Amrit Raj and Upasana Jain, July 9, 2016
The Indian government has made Aadhaar the pivot for delivering subsidies and other social welfare benefits directly to the people by transferring cash to their bank accounts, seeking to cut out middlemen and curb leakages. It is also a key element in India鈥檚 move towards a cashless economy.

EFFECTIVE ALTRUISM

6. 
The Huffington Post, Linch Zhang, July 11, 2016
Ben West is a startup entrepreneur based out of Madison, Wisconsin. He is also a member of the Effective Altruism community and had donated over $100,000 to effective charities before his company even started, and expects to donate millions in the future. I interviewed him to understand more about his motivations and drive and to see if he has practical advice for Huffington Post readers.

BASIC INCOME

7. 
BBC, Helen Grady, July 11, 2016
Should the state pay everyone a Universal Basic Income? Sonia Sodha finds out why the idea is winning support from an unlikely alliance of leftists and libertarians.

8. 
WNYC, Charlie Herman, July 8, 2016
Could free money help with the country’s financial woes? While economists and folks on Wall Street dig into the latest unemployment report released today, the nation’s workers continue to deal with stagnant wages, men in their prime vanishing from the workforce and a sluggish economy. This is prompting some to toy with an unconventional solution: a universal basic income.

9. 
Prospect, Stewart Lansley and Howard Reed, July 7, 2016
However, a 鈥渕odified鈥� scheme, one that began by providing a UBI at a moderate level while leaving much of the existing system intact, would be perfectly feasible. Contrary to Cruddas and Kibasi鈥檚 claims, such a scheme, while not a silver bullet, would offer substantial gains: a sharp increase in average income among the poorest, a cut in child poverty of 45 per cent, and a modest reduction in inequality, all at a manageable cost of 拢8bn.

10. 
The Wall Street Journal, Jeffrey Sparshott, July 7, 2016
A UBI would present the most disadvantaged among us with an open road to the middle class if they put their minds to it,鈥� American Enterprise Institute scholar Charles Murray said in a Wall Street Journal column last month. 鈥淚t would say to people who have never had reason to believe it before: 鈥榊our future is in your hands.鈥� And that would be the truth.