Guyana’s $500 Oil Cash Grant Lands as Georgetown Prices Keep Climbing

Guyana’s Natural Resource Fund has begun paying cash grants of 100,000 Guyanese dollars — just under US$500 — to citizens aged 18 and over, registered online with identification. The transfer arrives as residents describe a sharp cost-of-living squeeze in Georgetown markets, where shoppers say wages have not kept pace with prices. The country is slated to receive roughly US$2.79 billion in oil revenue in 2026, with output near one million barrels a day and the non-oil economy growing about 14.3% last year, even as a public-sector minimum wage below US$500 a month underscores how unevenly the windfall has reached households.

Source: The American Prospect; World Oil; U.S. Energy Information Administration.