(Epistemic status: vague recollections that I’m not going to bother to look up, also I skimmed this post rather than reading it thoroughly)
I remember people in the GiveDirectly programs in Africa spending the money on things like replacing a thatched roof with a tin roof, or buying a cow. These are investments that can improve your well-being long-term (e.g. because your roof used to leak every time it rained, and now it’s not going to leak again for five years). I can’t think of anything comparable that a person in the US could do with a ~comparable lump sum.
The tin roof thing seems roughly comparable to buying a house outright (so that you don’t have to deal with recurring payments), but that’s orders of magnitude more expensive. I guess maybe you could… buy an RV/trailer to live in? But you can’t easily live in an RV in the city. The buying a cow thing seems roughly comparable to getting a better-paying job (the one-time investment gives you the chance to increase your quality of life, but you still have to put in the work to maintain it). Maybe $500-$2000 could buy you enough time off of work to look for a better job? But that’s not as straightforward as buying a cow.
Also, do the transfer recipients in Kenya generally have debts they need to pay off? That seems like a major and important difference
(Epistemic status: vague recollections that I’m not going to bother to look up, also I skimmed this post rather than reading it thoroughly)
I remember people in the GiveDirectly programs in Africa spending the money on things like replacing a thatched roof with a tin roof, or buying a cow. These are investments that can improve your well-being long-term (e.g. because your roof used to leak every time it rained, and now it’s not going to leak again for five years). I can’t think of anything comparable that a person in the US could do with a ~comparable lump sum.
The tin roof thing seems roughly comparable to buying a house outright (so that you don’t have to deal with recurring payments), but that’s orders of magnitude more expensive. I guess maybe you could… buy an RV/trailer to live in? But you can’t easily live in an RV in the city. The buying a cow thing seems roughly comparable to getting a better-paying job (the one-time investment gives you the chance to increase your quality of life, but you still have to put in the work to maintain it). Maybe $500-$2000 could buy you enough time off of work to look for a better job? But that’s not as straightforward as buying a cow.
Also, do the transfer recipients in Kenya generally have debts they need to pay off? That seems like a major and important difference