Full Citation
Title: Resource rents, universal basic income, and poverty among Alaska’s Indigenous peoples
Citation Type: Journal Article
Publication Year: 2018
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Abstract: The Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) program provides universal basic income (UBI) to all resi- dents from investment earnings of a state sovereign wealth fund created from oil rents. This paper eval- uates the effect of the PFD to mitigate poverty among the state’s rural Indigenous (Alaska Native) peoples: a population with historically high poverty rates living in a region with limited economic oppor- tunities. Errors in recording PFD income in data used to calculate official poverty statistics cause them to misrepresent poverty in Alaska and understate the effect of the PFD. Estimating poverty rates with and without PFD income therefore requires reconstruction of family incomes from household-level data. Estimated poverty rates from reconstructed income show that the PFD has had a substantial, although diminishing mitigating effect on poverty for rural Indigenous families. The PFD has had a larger effect on poverty among children and elders than for the rural Alaska Native population as a whole. Alaska Native seniors, who receive additional sources of UBI derived primarily from resource rents besides the PFD, have seen a decline in poverty rates, while poverty rates for children have increased. Evidence has not appeared for commonly hypothesized potential adverse social and economic conse- quences of UBI.
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Authors: Berman, Matthew
Periodical (Full): World Development
Issue:
Volume: 106
Pages: 161-172
Data Collections: IPUMS CPS
Topics: Poverty and Welfare
Countries: United States