![]() ![]() ![]() Uniformed traffic guards help children and the elderly across the street. Cycling paths run alongside the roads and bikes can be borrowed at no cost. Gas stations, workshops, cheap restaurants and protestant churches line the four-lane artery that connects it with Rio.īut if you turn off the main road into the town center, the image changes. At first sight, Maricá is almost indistinguishable from other Brazilian cities. The town responsible for this beneficence is located around 60 kilometers (37 miles) east of Rio de Janeiro, on the Atlantic coast. “Here, I have a quality of life that most poor Brazilians can only dream of.” “In Rio, I would be begging on the streets,” says Marques Ferreira. She lives together with her family in a simple house in a Maricá suburb. Furthermore, the city’s public transportation system is free of charge, and if she does need to make larger expenditures, such as renovating her bathroom, she can apply for a no-interest loan from the city. But Marques Ferreira now pays 20 percent less for electricity and water. In theory, the sum would hardly be enough for the single mother of two boys to make ends meet. When the cashier Agnes Marques Ferreira lost her supermarket job in January, the government of her hometown of Maricá saved her from plunging into misery by providing her with a monthly basic income worth around 900 reals, the equivalent of 140 euros ($171). ![]() It has proven its worth in the corona crisis. Like an island surrounded by the Brazil of right-wing President Jair Bolsonaro, the city of Maricá is testing a leftist totem: the unconditional basic income. ![]()
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