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<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="19935006" type="General" weightage="100" keywordseo="Guyana" source="keywords">Guyana</keyword>, the tiny South American nation, plans to give $500 to every citizen aged 18 and over.</li><li>Its president said the <keyword id="21044249" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="cash-payments" source="keywords">cash payments</keyword> aim to narrow disparities and help with higher living costs.</li></ul>The world's fastest-growing economy is giving the equivalent of $500 to each of its adult citizens as it works to share its newfound oil wealth and soften the sting of higher living costs. President <keyword id="21170274" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Mohamed-Irfaan-Ali" source="keywords">Mohamed Irfaan Ali</keyword> of Guyana, the South American country with just 800,000 people, announced the move last week and said his government would begin distributing the cash immediately. He previously said each household would receive the Guyanese-dollar equivalent of $1,000, but switched to an individual payment after locals raised concerns about how a household would be defined and how the money would be shared within each home. "This is how we are promoting prosperity, ownership, distribution of wealth," Ali said. "This is how the resources and revenue of this country are being spent every single day to lift the lives of people, to expand national wealth, coastal wealth, and community wealth." Guyanese authorities have taken other steps to combat the rising cost of living, the post noted. They've removed more than 200 taxes and fees, including the excise tax on fuel and VAT on water, electricity, and some basic foods. They also gave a one-time, tax-free grant worth about $120 a person to a group that included teachers and public servants last year. Nicolas Suarez, a senior economist at S&amp;P Global Market Intelligence who covers Latin America, told Business Insider the original plan would "increase the average household's disposable income, alleviating some budget constraints." He estimated the initial program's scale at 1.5% of national GDP and 7.9% of Guyana's Natural Resource Fund, which officials set up in 2019 to prudently manage the country's oil revenues. The scale of the updated plan is less clear. World Health Organization data suggests there are about 711,000 Guyanese aged 15 and over, so if we assume the 18+ population is 660,000 people and all of them receive $500 each, the program could cost $330 million —not far off the government's estimate of $290 million for the original household payout. "In the short term, this measure could boost private consumption growth, but it may not ease <keyword id="19895000" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="inflation" source="keywords">inflation</keyword>ary pressures," Suarez said about the previous plan. "On the contrary, higher government expenditures could lead to significant inflationary pressures over the next 12 months." He noted that inflation in Guyana has climbed from a pre-pandemic average of 2.3% a year to 3.3% in August. He noted that <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/investing/what-is-inflation">inflation</a> in Guyana has climbed from a pre-pandemic average of 2.3% a year to 3.3% in August. <h2>Riding an oil wave</h2>Guyana, an English-speaking former colony that gained independence from Britain in 1966, borders Venezuela to the west, Brazil to the south, and Suriname to the east. Its natural resource fund is similar to <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/norway-sovereign-wealth-fund-to-dump-russian-assets-ukraine-invasion-2022-2">Norway's oil fund</a>, set up in the 1990s to invest profits from the Scandinavian nation's oil-and-gas sector, protect the economy from fluctuations in energy revenues, and serve as a financial reserve and long-term savings plan for Norwegians. Norway's gas-powered sovereign wealth fund has helped to make it one of the world's wealthiest countries with an estimated population of 5.5 million and a GDP per capita of about $88,000 last year, according to World Bank data. Its oil fund held over $1.7 trillion of assets at the end of June, or more than $300,000 per Norwegian citizen. <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/warren-buffett-chevron-hess-guyana-oil-economy-berkshire-hathaway-stock-2023-10">Exxon</a>, which has discovered an estimated <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/oil-market-outlook-opec-price-cuts-us-crude-production-guyana-2023-12">11 billion barrels of oil equivalent</a> off Guyana's coastsince 2015, forecasts the country will produce about 1.3 million barrels a day once the company's six projects are online in 2027. That amount rivals Qatar's current output and would rank Guyana among the world's 20 largest oil producers. Guyana ramped up production to more than 600,000 barrels a day earlier this year, fueling roughly 50% <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/oil-market-guyana-economy-crude-production-outlook-opec-price-cuts-2023-12">GDP growth</a> in the first half and putting Guyana on track to grow about 43% this year, Ali said in an August webcast. Real GDP soared by about 62% in 2022 then 33% in 2023, while GDP per capita has surged from $7,000 in 2020 to around $26,000 this year, International Monetary Fund data shows. <h2>Sharing the wealth</h2>Guyana's payment to its people "sounds like great news," Karl Widerquist, a philosophy professor at Georgetown University-Qatar and the author of several books about universal basic income (UBI) told BI. He described the one-time distribution as "basic capital" or a "stakeholder grant" instead of a basic income, but said "it's a big step in that direction if they go through with it." UBI typically refers to a recurring cash payment made to every individual in a society regardless of their wealth, with no restrictions on <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-people-spend-universal-basic-income-ubi-food-housing-transportation-2024-4">how the money is spent</a> and no requirement to pay it back. Proponents hail it as a safety net against poverty that relieves financial strain and frees people to change jobs, start businesses, and weather periods of bad luck without stressing about paying their bills. Guyana's one-off, unconditional cash grant is a "positive step," Cleo Goodman, the basic income lead at the Autonomy Institute think tank, told BI. "This is a welcome injection of cash for citizens." However, she noted a guaranteed, regular income would be a "much more comprehensive commitment to redistributing this newfound wealth." Guyana was colonized by the Netherlands before Britain gained control in the late 18th century. The nation, which shares borders with Venezuela, Brazil and Suriname, became independent in 1966. Correction: October 18, 2024 — An earlier version of this story mistakenly reported an outdated version of the policy. Guyana announced Wednesday it had decided to give the equivalent of $500 to every adult, rather than a higher amount to each household as previously planned. The story also misstated the value of the previously announced figure in US dollars. It was $1,000 a household, not $2,000.

This tiny country says it will give $500 to every adult as an Exxon oil boom supercharges its economy

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This tiny country says it will give $500 to every adult as an Exxon oil boom supercharges its economy

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