Americans felt the effects of this kind of spending* during the coronavirus pandemic, when the government extended unemployment benefits and sent close to $1 trillion in direct stimulus payments to about 85 percent of households. This temporary expansion of the social safety net caused poverty to drop to the lowest levels on record in the United States (underlining emphasis mine).
Extreme Poverty Has Been Sharply Cut. What Has Changed?, New York Times, December 2, 2021
Now seems like a good time to deeply consider implementing a national universal basic income initiative, no?
If I were king** for a day of these less than United States, I would mandate UBI and the only requirements to receive it for those subjects of mine so impoverished would be for the entire household to receive regular health checkups and for all school-age children within the household to stay in school, similar to succeeding initiatives to end extreme poverty in other countries… such as Mexico as discussed in the referenced NYT article.
But what do I know, I’m just a caveman**…
*social initiatives to end extreme poverty, defined by the United Nations as a household having to survive on less than $1.90 a day
**non-gender specific
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PSA: I have a new newsletter initiative coming online soon. My old newsletter, Newsletter Love, one hosted through the clunky Mailchimp service which made it hard for me to get motivated to attend to it properly, is being superseded by a new newsletter hosted by SUBSTACK, a super smooth provider.
The newsletter is called HumanZen: one man’s attempt to discover the Zen of being human…
Each new edition will be delivered weekly on Sundays. All new subscribers will still receive a copy of my short story collection LEAVE: And Other Stories Short and Shorter.
To learn more about the newsletter and subscribe, venture forth to here.