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Disappointing Findings on Anti-Poverty Cash Transfers in the USA

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Re: Disappointing Findings on Anti-Poverty Cash Transfers in the USA

#31

Post by cuckcuckspruce »

sharemywin wrote: post #19

On average, the program cost $13,459 per family, 48 percent of which was paid directly to families as cash rewards. So the best we can do is 48% efficiency?

Just because only 48% was paid directly to the family does not mean that these were the only costs to the program. For example, the program requires regular health checkups, so to make those accessible it likely either paid the total cost or most of the cost for those checkups as it's unlikely that the people using this program would be able to pay for them completely on their own.

Re: Disappointing Findings on Anti-Poverty Cash Transfers in the USA

#32

Post by tootie »

funkythingsss wrote: post #27

Why is this surprising? Most anti-poverty measures are ineffective. The "war on poverty" has not worked in a single metric. Affirmative action hasn't changed a thing. The only thing that can get you out of poverty is a good family structure, a culture built on performance (Chinese, Indian culture takes this waaaay to far, but it's a start).

You'll need a lot of citation for that. Also, Affirmative Action is decidedly not an anti-poverty program. It's an anti-bias program. And the comparison to China and India is apples and oranges. Aside from the fact that both countries have hundreds of millions of people in poverty, their success has been in industrializing agrarian societies. America is pretty far past that point. Our levels of absolute poverty (penury) are already near zero.

Re: Disappointing Findings on Anti-Poverty Cash Transfers in the USA

#33

Post by bequanna »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #20
bdcravens wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up dirt poor. Filthy home, no family car, head lice, "food or electricity this week?" poor. Poverty was a series of choices, not something forced upon my family. Of course you eventually get to a point where you can't "better choice" your way out of it, but I think the truth needs to be said, as that reality isn't very PC it seems. Every time my family had any money, they bought stuff. Not stuff we needed, but…

I think it's dangerous to take your situation and apply it to everyone in poverty. Most people are there because they don't have a way out even if in your specific circumstance that wasn't the case.

> Most people are there because they don't have a way out ...

You're refuting an anecdotal example with an unsubstantiated claim.

Re: Disappointing Findings on Anti-Poverty Cash Transfers in the USA

#34

Post by linkmotif »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #20
bdcravens wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up dirt poor. Filthy home, no family car, head lice, "food or electricity this week?" poor. Poverty was a series of choices, not something forced upon my family. Of course you eventually get to a point where you can't "better choice" your way out of it, but I think the truth needs to be said, as that reality isn't very PC it seems. Every time my family had any money, they bought stuff. Not stuff we needed, but…

I think it's dangerous to take your situation and apply it to everyone in poverty. Most people are there because they don't have a way out even if in your specific circumstance that wasn't the case.

> Most people are there because they don't have a way out even if in your specific circumstance that wasn't the case.

That’s a huge statement. How would you back that up? “Most” people? Who? When? Why?

Re: Disappointing Findings on Anti-Poverty Cash Transfers in the USA

#35

Post by JackFr »

sharemywin wrote: post #19

On average, the program cost $13,459 per family, 48 percent of which was paid directly to families as cash rewards. So the best we can do is 48% efficiency?

To me that was the most interesting part.

With respect to the politics of implementing these programs, it's not simply the incentives created by the 48% that lead to a programs continued adoption, but the incentive created by the 52%.

Re: Disappointing Findings on Anti-Poverty Cash Transfers in the USA

#36

Post by btilly »

rmuesi wrote: post #21
btilly wrote: post #4

I think that the problem is simple. People respond poorly to long-term rewards. You need to set up a short-term reward payoff cycle. https://buildingpharmabrands.com/2013/05/27/the-ad-that-crea... is inspiring that way. It shows how people who could not be motivated to solve a well-known long-term problem, tooth decay, were successfully motivated to solve a short-term problem that they previously ignored - the fact t…

Isn't that exactly how this program was operating? Short-term reward payoff: monthly cash; long-term reward: children graduate from school.

In the context of brain psychology, short-term needs to be seconds to minutes. For example try to train a dog with rewards that come an hour later. It won't work.

In the example that I gave, you brush your teeth, your mouth feels better right away. That works.

By contrast if you start working on your project now, next week you won't have a miserable all-nighter. That doesn't work. Just ask anyone in college if you doubt me.

That is why a monthly feedback cycle did not prove to be successful motivation here.

Re: Disappointing Findings on Anti-Poverty Cash Transfers in the USA

#37

Post by bdcravens »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #20
bdcravens wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up dirt poor. Filthy home, no family car, head lice, "food or electricity this week?" poor. Poverty was a series of choices, not something forced upon my family. Of course you eventually get to a point where you can't "better choice" your way out of it, but I think the truth needs to be said, as that reality isn't very PC it seems. Every time my family had any money, they bought stuff. Not stuff we needed, but…

I think it's dangerous to take your situation and apply it to everyone in poverty. Most people are there because they don't have a way out even if in your specific circumstance that wasn't the case.

I agree, there will always be exceptions. My bigger point is that you must accept N% of failure if all you're addressing is the money part of the equation. My opinion is that N is a much higher number than is socially acceptable.

Re: Disappointing Findings on Anti-Poverty Cash Transfers in the USA

#38

Post by DanBC »

jf wrote: post #2

A Conditional Cash Transfer program called "Opportunity NYC" is mentioned in this article. Given what I read in the article, I expected the amount of money in question to be on the order of hundreds or thousands a month, but according to Wikipedia, the only gave parents "$40 to $100 a month" The cash payments go to the family, almost always the mother or other female head of the household. Parents can receive from $4…

It's not much money.

But for poor people $100 a month is the difference between eating or not eating some days, or having the heating on or going cold, or buying some books for the kids to read at home, or paying the bills on time vs paying them late.

Also, about books: I don't know if there's something like this in the US, but it seems like a good idea: https://literacytrust.org.uk/support-us/help-child-fall-love...

Re: Disappointing Findings on Anti-Poverty Cash Transfers in the USA

#39

Post by olympus »

sharemywin wrote: post #19

On average, the program cost $13,459 per family, 48 percent of which was paid directly to families as cash rewards. So the best we can do is 48% efficiency?

While it sounds low, this is almost the same efficiency that a temporary work program for homeless people in Denver had (which initially caused me to look into the low sounding efficiency number).

Think of it like this: if all of the remaining 52% went to paying a NYC social worker's average salary of $73.9k (source below), then each social worker has to manage 10.5 families to pay their salary. That's managing ten families and making sure their kids are in school, they are going to doctor's visits, etc, each week. That sounds like a manageable workload. BUT WAIT! An employee actually costs 200% of their salary to employ in terms of office rent, benefits, and other incidentals (that 200% figure can go up and down depending on company, location, etc, but is a good enough number for this thought experiment). So in reality, each social worker needs to manage 21 families to have their employment costs paid for. And tracking 21 families weekly sounds like a reasonable full time fob to me. That's getting in touch with just a little over four families each day to make sure they are meeting their conditions for the money. Since social work like this usually requires a lot of driving, it will probably fill up their day.

So really, when accounting for the fact that you have to pay the case managers a fair wage to live in NYC to administer the program, 48% sounds about right. At least that single number doesn't point to there being any obvious graft going on.

https://www1.salary.com/NY/Social-Worker-MSW-Salary.html

Re: Disappointing Findings on Anti-Poverty Cash Transfers in the USA

#40

Post by djtriptych »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #20
bdcravens wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I grew up dirt poor. Filthy home, no family car, head lice, "food or electricity this week?" poor. Poverty was a series of choices, not something forced upon my family. Of course you eventually get to a point where you can't "better choice" your way out of it, but I think the truth needs to be said, as that reality isn't very PC it seems. Every time my family had any money, they bought stuff. Not stuff we needed, but…

I think it's dangerous to take your situation and apply it to everyone in poverty. Most people are there because they don't have a way out even if in your specific circumstance that wasn't the case.

It's extremely dangerous and rather divorced from reality. Just an anti-PC self-congratulatory tirade. Why posts like this get upvoted is truly beyond me.
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