Giving Money to the Poor

In the first edition of this book, I agreed that we should not be giving money directly to the poor. But in 2009, four Harvard and MIT graduate students decided to see what would happen if they gave poor families in Kenya money with no strings attached. The results were promising: Many recipients used the money to replace their leaky-fatched roof; spending on alcohol as a proportion of total income did not increase. In 2017, Give Directly launched a trial of a universal basic income scheme,. guaranteeing sufficient income to meet basic needs for 12 years.