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Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”

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Re: Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”

#51

Post by protomyth »

mobilefriendly wrote: post #49
protomyth wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often wish we in the US would separate out long-term medicine from insurance. It really violates any rational for insurance to have a continuous, known cost be part of that. Also, it ups the insurance cost for everyone else. I wish we had a separate drug assistance program. Something like if you are making less than 200 or 300% poverty[1] the government will pay the full cost[2] and then just pro-rate it from there…

> wish we had a separate drug assistance program. Already exists. https://www.medicaid.gov/medicaid/prescription-drugs/index.h...

I mean for everyone in the US not just those on Medicaid. Replacing insurance but still able to use Medical Savings Accounts to purchase my share of the drugs.

Re: Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”

#52

Post by wmf »

BartSaM wrote: post #19

I would love to see more work-for-benefits programs. Where you are required to do some labour work for the community (cleaning wild areas, swiping side walks, planting trees etc.) in exchange for some better than average benefits. IMO everyone should be entitled to such a work. This way we would eliminate involuntary extreme poverty.

Is there any evidence this is a good idea? The whole point of the article is that social programs based on intuition are not effective.

Re: Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”

#53

Post by AnimalMuppet »

ticviking wrote: post #30
thegayngler wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Salt Lake City they gave their homeless peeps homes and many of them ended up going right back to work once their living situation was stabilized.

And attracted every homeless person from 3 states around. The situation is so bad(both in terms of crime, and total population) that our state legislators are non-ironically talking about calling the national guard. To clear out camps where violence is becoming a problem. They already totally cut to the ground the shrubbery near one major camp because there were multiple assaults and a rape using those bushes as cove…

North of 4th North, just east of the tracks? I saw that all the trees disappeared there, and didn't know why.

Re: Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”

#54

Post by AnimalMuppet »

BeStaXP wrote: post #44

It might be true that "most government programs don't work" (at least to achieve their stated purpose), with social programs being a subset of that...

I suppose I should be flattered that you liked what I said. I don't approve of you presenting my exact words as your own, though...

Re: Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”

#55

Post by protomyth »

jansho wrote: post #38
protomyth wrote: post #33

I participated in a social program funded by the gov in the 90's as the data person. It was a combined early childhood education / social service program. I won't discuss what I thought of the outcomes or the cost / benefits, but I think there is a piece a lot of people miss. There are consultants in DC that take all the data from a program and summarize it. They have a contract and aren't always the folks who have t…

I'm glad that you mentioned hearing problems (ear infections specifically). They have been shown to affect child development in ways that aren't immediately intuitive, like hyperactivity and their ability to pick up phonics [1]. That obviously has an impact on their early learning, and consequently the rest of their lives. [1] https://www.hslda.org/strugglinglearner/CraftDocs/EarInfect....

Yeah, new parent really need to make sure they get the screenings and be very aware of their child's hearing. This can slow your child's development in the critical 0-3 years. This is not a grow out of it thing, quite the opposite in fact.

Re: Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”

#56

Post by forgotmysn »

thephyber wrote: post #45
forgotmysn wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you think a UBI would be a more effective way of helping people in more complex situations?

You can't talk about a hypothetical world with a UBI without making assumptions about what programs we currently have that are lost to fund the UBI. In the most "free market" version of a UBI vision, there are no government-subsidized social workers. If you are blind, deaf, learning impaired, addicted, etc you are at the mercy of whatever help you can find by paying for it. But there are also visions of UBI that comb…

Very good point. The assumptions I was implying were that a UBI would replace the broad, disjointed social welfare programs with a centralized, singular service that's relatively equal but weighted by need.

Re: Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”

#57

Post by BenjaminTodd »

sharemywin wrote: post #5
robertwiblin wrote: post #2

I'm one of the authors of this post - look forward to hearing you comments!

So, I couldn't get a good feel on how much of the issue is small sample size?

Some of it is that, but much less so for the meta-analyses. We have a bunch more comments about this in the doc.

Re: Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”

#58

Post by ticviking »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #53
ticviking wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And attracted every homeless person from 3 states around. The situation is so bad(both in terms of crime, and total population) that our state legislators are non-ironically talking about calling the national guard. To clear out camps where violence is becoming a problem. They already totally cut to the ground the shrubbery near one major camp because there were multiple assaults and a rape using those bushes as cove…

North of 4th North, just east of the tracks? I saw that all the trees disappeared there, and didn't know why.

Yep. And also a section of the Jordan River Trail a bit farther west in rose park.

Re: Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”

#59

Post by BenjaminTodd »

nonbel wrote: post #10

The way of telling if it works is: statistical significance. This "approach" to research was debunked as pseudoscience long ago (eg here is one from 1967[1], and that wasn't the first)... So the answer is: no one knows what works or doesn't, (edit: at least not based on the usual claimed method of drawing conclusions from the data). [1] http://www.fisme.science.uu.nl/staff/christianb/downloads/me...

We discuss this somewhat in the post - the line at which you say something "works" is arbitrary. We explore how the choice of definition changes the stat.

Re: Investigating a ten-year-old estimate that “most social programmes don’t work”

#60

Post by fatalogic »

forgotmysn wrote: post #39
fatalogic wrote: post #12

As a former social worker I think most social programs don't work because they try to deal with multifaceted problems from a single point of action. It's like trying to fix a suspension bridge by replacing one cable while all the other cables are broken.

do you think a UBI would be a more effective way of helping people in more complex situations?

It would help some people but for most of the people I worked with money was more a symptom of their issues than a root cause.

Lets say we have a child who is in 5th grade who reads at a 1st grade level. Most programs will say oh well he/she just needs more education so they create after school tutoring. That's great but there are so many things that can be hindering that child's ability to read. The real root may be a medical issue, family issue, cultural issue, structural or a combination of one or more.

People aren't equations, you can't just input x and expect y.

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