America can teach Kenya how to care for its poor

Have you ever wondered how millions of unemployed Kenyans survive without any income or government assistance?

What about the old who need medical care but have no health insurance?

How do those who lose all their property to floods, mudslides and fire pick up the pieces and manage to move on with their lives?

Do the weak and vulnerable in society have a right to demand for assistance from the government?

Or is the current system where every Kenyan fends for himself the true meaning of being a capitalist state?

In the United States, which is considered the most capitalistic state in the world, about three million unemployed Americans heaved a sigh of relief last week after Congress passed a vote that allowed them to continue earning unemployment pay cheques for six more months.

The US government will spend an equivalent of Sh2.7 trillion ($34 billion) to pay monthly stipends to unemployed people in the period. 

Jobless people

The allowances are calculated based on income that jobless people used to earn in their previous employment. 

The emergency unemployment benefits programme was put in place to cushion Americans who lost jobs during the economic recession triggered by the 2008 financial crisis.

This lifeline had been cut off since early June amid political grandstanding by the Republicans, who opposed the Democrats’ proposal to extend the payouts arguing that they were inflating an already ballooning federal government deficit.

President Barack Obama said approval of the package would ensure that Americans who have lost their jobs in the economic downturn are able to meet their basic needs, as they search for new employment.

That is not all, the Democrats are pushing for Congress’ approval of an even bigger budget of $200 billion targeted at social security programmes such as health insurance subsidies for the unemployed, tax incentives, and government backed soft loans to small businesses.

When flash floods and storms hit Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky in May killing close to 30 people and damaging thousands of homes, FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency) rushed to the victims’ rescue, writing them cheques of up to $30,000 (Sh2.4 million) to help them get back on their feet.

Meanwhile, government supervised payment of claims to fishermen, boat and restaurant owners, and other oil related industry workers have been going on at the Gulf of Mexico Coast where the worst oil spill in US history has disrupted the livelihoods of thousands of households since April following the explosion of a deepwater oil rig. 

President Obama personally demanded that BP, the oil mining company that owned the well, put $20 billion (about Sh1.6 trillion) in a special fund to compensate all residents of the Gulf Coast whose livelihood has been affected by the spill.

Former fishermen and everyone else who can prove that their livelihood was curtailed by the spill will be expected to lodge claims to a special team appointed by President Obama to oversee the payments.

Ken Feinberg, the head of the compensation team, is christened as the “special master of compensation” by sections of the US media.

He has been involved in several government compensation plans, including payouts to victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York, and the Virginia Tech Shootings in which a gunman killed 32 people on the Campus of Virgian Tech.

If you are an American citizen aged over 65 years, you immediately qualify for free government health insurance and a monthly social security stipend based on your income record during your working years.

The disabled have free government housing, and people who earn annual incomes that are below certain thresholds are entitled to subsidised housing by the federal or state governments.

I could go on giving examples safety nets that the “capitalistic” US government has put in place for its vulnerable population.

Of course there is no comparison with the situation in Kenya, where the government is seen as a cash cow that politicians and civil servants milk to enrich themselves while the majority poor live by sheer faith, exposed to all sorts of shocks that are thrown their way.

Cost sharing

When the gospel of economic liberalisation took root in the 1980s the last layer of defence the Kenyan government had retained for the poor was taken away.

In came “cost sharing” in hospitals and schools, and the collapse of crucial social support institutions like those that advanced low cost loans to farmers.

The 1990s was a lost decade, and fruits of the greed that permeated society after the country embraced “pure capitalism” can be seen in the streets and on dark alleys where unemployed youth engage in the occupation they know best, waylaying their innocent victims.

On many occasions, the government rightly points out that these unemployed youth — who have now morphed into organised militia like the Mungiki — are a ticking time bomb that could explode into an inextinguishable fireball of insecurity.

Plans to roll out social security payments to all senior citizens are also mentioned occasionally, but these are never followed through with concrete actions.

As for flood, mudslide and fire victims, the random donations of blankets and roofing sheets from the Red Cross and politicians under the glare of TV cameras is all they hope for.

Kenya can learn a great deal about how to treat its most vulnerable citizens by looking at the United ‘Socialist’ States of America.

Even capitalism has a human face to it.