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A tiny Pacific country rolls out universal basic income

37 points motionlessveloc 2 hours ago 7 comments

motionlessveloc 2 hours ago | parent

This doesn't sound terribly different from eg Alaska's Permanent Fund payouts? The main difference seems to be that PF payments fluctuate a lot, while the Marshalls plan seems to be a fixed, predictable sum.

_doctor_love 42 minutes ago | parent

It is very similar but works differently. Also the two programs do not have the same intent.

The US has a Compact of Free Assocation (COFA) with the Marshall Islands, which provides a lot of the funds for this. Versus Alaska where it is paid for by natural resource extraction. All that said, it is the government of the Marshall Islands making the decision to pay it out this way.

From the US point of view, this is a good program because it incentivizes people from the Marshall Islands to stay put rather than emigrate to the US mainland (which they have a right to do under the COFA).

rambambram 1 hour ago | parent

Can we please put back the meaning of words?

no-name-here 59 minutes ago | parent

Which words? From the reports I've seen, it's available to all citizens, and it's one of the 2 kinds of UBI. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_basic_income

caminante 35 minutes ago | parent

*Partial UBI with only $800/year

Details aren't as sexy as the headline would lead one to believe.

gus_massa 31 minutes ago | parent

This page https://wage.is/marshall-islands/ claims the average is US$168000 per year and the median US$9600 per year. [My guess is that the poverty line is close to US$5000 per year, probably higher.] This program adds US$800 per year. So it's a "universal partial basic income" instead of a "universal total basic income".

In all the discussion I remember, "universal basic income" == "universal total basic income" but perhaps I was not paying too much attention.