The city of @MaricaRJ has just launched the most ambitious COVID-19 response in Brazil and arguably the world. In a new piece @BostonReview, @LeandroFerreira and I discuss the #BasicIncome policies that made this possible and the lessons they can teach us. A thread 1/x
Here’s a link to the piece, in case you'd like the version unbounded by 280-character limits: bostonreview.net/class-inequali… 2/x
Some 42k of the lowest-income residents in Maricá (pop. 160k) — who already receive 130 reais (about $25) per month as part of the city’s expanded #BasicIncome — will now be paid R$300 per month ($60) at least through June. That's 169 percent of the Brazilian poverty line 3/x
April’s payment of R$430 will be even larger. Self-employed workers, children, and small businesses will get further help. The sums involved aren’t luxurious, but they mean the difference between catastrophe and the possibility to overcome the crisis for tens of thousands 4/x
This remarkable response, launched before the city had even a single confirmed case of COVID-19, may be surprising to some, but not to those familiar with the history of Maricá, nicknamed “City of Utopias” 5/x
Maricá is the only municipality in the state of Rio de Janeiro governed by the Workers’ Party (PT), and recently it has benefitted from a stroke of geological fortune: its location next to the most productive oil drilling site in Brazil 6/x
But unlike the protagonists of so many earlier commodity booms, the city has used its windfall to distinguish itself as Brazil’s premier municipal innovator, investing its oil proceeds in a singular suite of progressive social policies 7/x
These include a #BasicIncome program w/ 42k+ monthly recipients, savings accounts for high school students, free public transportation, massive infrastructure investments, and a sovereign wealth fund to lower costs of capital and guarantee social programs in perpetuity 8/x
The impact of the #BasicIncome program is massive: it injects R$5.5 million (more than $1mn) into the local economy each month. And all of that money must be spent right in Maricá 9/x
That’s because all these benefits are paid in a local digital currency called the mumbuca. The currency is administered by the Banco Mumbuca, the largest community bank in Brazil, and is accepted exclusively and almost universally in Maricá 10/x
The bank is run cooperatively by its employees, and the fees that businesses pay to accept the mumbuca are used to fund zero-interest loans for local entrepreneurs and homeowners, who would otherwise have little access to credit. 11/x
The mumbuca was born of a remarkable policy vision that has taken root more deeply in Brazil than almost anywhere else: the “solidarity economy,” characterized in Brazil by local cooperativism and the world’s largest network of state-regulated community banks 12/x
It also reflects the unique history of #BasicIncome in Brazil, which, thanks to @esuplicy, is the only country in the world to enshrine every citizen’s right to a basic income in law 13/x
For the past year I have worked with colleagues at @jainfamilyinst, @uff_br, and @rederbrb to study these exciting policies in Maricá. We hope to bring them to other cities in Brazil and across the world 14/x
The ability of Maricá to translate its #BasicIncome program into one of the biggest and fastest responses to COVID-19 anywhere is a testament to the power and adaptability of policies rooted not in the rapaciousness to which we are all accustomed, but in solidarity 15/x
If you'd like to learn more about what's happening in Maricá, check out this great piece from Vox's
@dylanmatt
vox.com/future-perfect… 16/x
@dylanmatt
vox.com/future-perfect… 16/x
And if you read Portuguese, don't miss this amazing reportage from @marischreiber: bbc.com/portuguese/ger… 17/x
You can read more about the impressive work of @rederbrb on their beautiful website: rendabasica.com.br 18/x
Finally, you'll find more about the Maricá study and other JFI projects on our own site: jainfamilyinstitute.org 19/20
Our responses to the COVID-19 crisis, in Brazil, in the US and elsewhere, will shape the world to come. Let’s follow Maricá's lead and make policy choices that drive us, not toward reinvestment in individualism and greed, but toward a deepening of cooperation and solidarity 20/20
Erratum -- I used the wrong twitter handle for my co-author at the top of this thread, find him at @leandrogpp. My apologies Leandro! 21/20
