Canadian province experiments with ‘basic income’ payments to low-income people, By Rob Gillies (AP), November 29, 2017, Portland Press Herald: “Former security guard Tim Button considers how a sudden increase in his income from an unusual social experiment has changed his life in this Canadian industrial city along the shore of Lake Ontario. Sipping coffee in a Tim Horton’s doughnut shop, Button says he has been unable to work because of a fall from a roof, and the financial boost from Ontario Province’s new ‘basic income’ program has enabled him to make plans to visit distant family for Christmas for the first time in years. It has also prompted him to eat healthier, schedule a long-postponed trip to the dentist and mull taking a course to help him get back to work…”
Category: International
Poverty Measurement
What’s the meaning of the World Bank’s new poverty lines?, By Marc Silver and Malaka Gharib, October 25, 2017, National Public Radio: “According to the World Bank, if you’re living on $1.90 a day or less, you’re living in extreme poverty. The 767 million people in that category have $1.90 a day or less in purchasing power to fulfill their daily needs…”
Income Inequality Among Retirees
For many older Americans, the rat race is over. But the inequality isn’t., By Peter Whoriskey, October 18, 2017, Washington Post: “While the rat race ends with retirement, one of its principal features extends well past a person’s last day of work. Income inequality in the United States spills over from the job into the last decades of life, according to a new survey that ranks the differences among U.S. retirees as among the most extreme in the 35-country comparison. The report being issued Wednesday by the OECD, or Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, reports levels of inequality in a survey of member countries…”