Giving The Poor Money

The poor are undercapitalized. So, rather than devising programs that apply systemic solutions to a demographic or regional population, maybe the issue is simply giving the poor more money. It turns out that this has been tried.

For individuals;

That conclusion is bolstered by work from Columbia University’s Chris Blattman and colleagues in Uganda, where a $150 cash grant to poor women in the northern part of the country doubled their earnings within a year, while one-off $382 transfers to 16- to 35-year-olds were associated with 40-percent higher earningsfour years later. – The Atlantic

For entrepreneurs;

The start-ups who received the grants were 37 percentage points more likely to survive the next three years. And more importantly, they were 22.9 percentage points more likely to grow to more than 10 workers. Similar effects were reported on existing firms, and 7,027 jobs were generated as a result of the program, at an adjusted cost per job of some $28,136 less than government spending programs in the US. – Quartz

The only way out of poverty is to make and have more money. It takes money to make money. Give the poor money and they tend to spend it on getting out of poverty. The assistance is far more direct, allows the individuals to create solutions that work for them, and costs far less than conventional charitable and governmental programs.