Finland’s universal basic income trial for unemployed reduces stress levels
Citizens receiving a basic monthly income as part of a radical Finnish pilot scheme have seen a reduction in their stress levels, an official leading the trial has said.
Poverty alleviation
The Economic Security Project is committing $10 million to study universal basic income in the U.S.
Partially tested in various places in the 1960s and 1970sincluding areas of the US, Canada, and IndiaUBI gives everyone a guaranteed minimum payment as a way to, in theory, reduce poverty and improve health, eduction, and other benefits.
Ontario to give every citizen $1,320 income boost to overcome poverty
One in five children live in poverty in Canada, according to Unicef, and a recent poll found two-thirds of Canadians open to the idea of basic income
Guatemala becomes fourth country in the world to eliminate onchocerciasis, known as ‘river blindness’
Of the six countries in the Americas where transmission of the debilitating disease was present in the 1990s, Guatemala accounted for about 41% of the 568,000 people at risk.
World poverty rate to fall below 10% for the first time
The World Bank projects that the number of people living in poverty fell to 702 million people in 2015, or about 9.6% of the global population.
World leaders adopt Sustainable Development Goals
At the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit on 25 September 2015, more than 150 world leaders adopted the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, including the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
India launches massive, historic Swachh Bharat Mission to boost poverty alleviation through sanitation efforts
Initiated by the Indian government, the mission aimed to achieve an “open-defecation free” and resulted in the construction of an estimated 89.9 million toilets between 2014 and 2019.
The U.S. formally passes the Higher Education Act into law, making student loans widely available for the first time
Federal student loans were first offered in the U.S. in 1958 under the National Defense Education Act. However, they were only available to select categories of students, such as those studying engineering, science, or education. Low-income student loans only became more broadly available in the 1960s under the Higher Education Act of 1965, which also increased federal money given to universities, created scholarships, and established a National Teachers Corps.
U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt begins implementing his “New Deal”
The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations in the U.S. between 1933 and 1938. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, “perhaps the greatest achievement of the New Deal was to restore faith in American democracy at a time when many people believed that the only choice left was between communism and fascism”.
The Soviet Union becomes the first modern state in the world to formally legalize abortion
In October 1920, the Bolsheviks under Vladimir Lenin made abortion legal within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic with their “Decree on Women’s Healthcare”. After the RSFSR, the law was introduced in Ukraine in July 1921 and then the remainder of the Soviet Union. The government saw legalization as a temporary necessity, as after the economic crisis and nearly a decade of unrest, war, revolution, and civil war, many women would be seeking abortions due to not being able to take care of their child.