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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

#61

Post by lazerpants »

bdcravens wrote: post #17
cortesoft wrote: post #3

Man, this type of program sounds patronizing. "Here, let us rich people tell you poor people what you need to do so you can be successful like me" Making this conditional is basically saying, "You don't know what you need, and we can't trust you to do what is best for yourself" People know what they need. If we have money to give them, just give them the money.

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…

>Every time my family had any money, they bought stuff. Not stuff we needed, but stupid crap. Definitely not calculated decisions to make progress to getting out of poverty.

Growing up my family did the same (waste money), but frankly, it didn't matter. It's not like a $300 check can do much to help a person, let alone a family, progress out of poverty. From my experience education is pretty much the only thing that works to move people out of poverty, and it is very expensive and exclusive.

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

#62

Post by cmurf »

bdcravens wrote: post #17
cortesoft wrote: post #3

Man, this type of program sounds patronizing. "Here, let us rich people tell you poor people what you need to do so you can be successful like me" Making this conditional is basically saying, "You don't know what you need, and we can't trust you to do what is best for yourself" People know what they need. If we have money to give them, just give them the money.

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…

It sounds circular to me: poverty itself incentivizes poverty. Are you less likely to grow up learning ambition, saving for a rainy day, and postponing gratification if your family grows up in poverty? I think the answer is, unquestionably, yes. You've gotten out of it by some combination of life experience that caused you to realize the bad choices, but also to have the ambition and imagination that better is possible.

I see poverty as kind of the backside of the power curve (various examples exist, I'll use airplanes): When an airplane is in slow flight on the backside of the power curve, drag is extremely high, and it takes a lot of power to get out of it, although merely just adding power doesn't guarantee you'll get out either. You need power and you have to change the flight profile (nose down a bit).

It's entirely possible UBI (and variant) trials in other countries where poverty is already low, will show higher efficacy than in the U.S. where poverty is higher and inherited, just like wealth.

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

#63

Post by charlesdm »

wutbrodo wrote: post #24
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…

Opportunity NYC was the previous program. The current one is called Family Rewards 2.0 > On average, the program cost $13,459 per family, 48 percent of which was paid directly to families as cash rewards. This was over a three year period, which means that each family received 13459*.48/3 = $2150, or about $180/mo. So they provided between 2-5x as much money. I share your confusion though, as this is still categorica…

> 48 percent of which was paid directly to families as cash rewards.

So where did the other 52% go to? Working costs of the program?

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

#64

Post by ctrl-j »

Para2016 wrote: post #28
ctrl-j wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who grew up poor with parents who worked their asses off and didn't touch drugs or booze - your comment is both in poor taste, and ignorant. I'd happily give all the crack addicts assistance if it meant no children missed any meals.

It better be non cash based assistance then. If you're happily giving money to cocaine addicts then you're not being helpful at all.

> If you're happily giving money to cocaine addicts then you're not being helpful at all.

How about we don't conflate the two issues?

People who have so little money they can't afford food, should get assistance. Full stop.

Crack addicts who are so poor to require that same assistance probably need drug counseling and possible mental health assistance. In addition to the money for food.

If you think throwing it on a card or whatever will stop the addicts from buying drugs - you're mistaken.

Maybe we shouldn't treat people who are suffering as if they deserve their conditions. Maybe we should have more compassion for them, than we do for the corrupt wall street bankers who got massive bailouts in 2008.

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

#65

Post by setgree »

aantix wrote: post #26
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…

I found that striking too. In this program they were provided "$13,459 per family, 48 percent of which was paid directly to families as cash rewards". While I'm sure it was nice to receive a _little_ extra money, that certainly isn't going to be life changing. It's more of a tease than anything.

Going with the previous calculation of $180/month ($2160/year), that's about a 9% annual increase for a family of 4 at the poverty line (I'm seeing stats of ~24/year).

One of the main ways in which redistribution programs are justified is by pointing out that a marginal dollar goes further for a poor person than a rich one. So I would hardly call this a "little" money, relative to baseline.

Having said that, one of the key advantages of unconditional cash transfers is that with much lower compliance/monitoring costs, a much higher percentage of all funds can go directly to the poor. GiveDirectly provides an 'imperfect estimate' of 81%, for the record https://www.givewell.org/charities/give-directly#CashRatios

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

#66

Post by closetohome »

bdcravens wrote: post #17
cortesoft wrote: post #3

Man, this type of program sounds patronizing. "Here, let us rich people tell you poor people what you need to do so you can be successful like me" Making this conditional is basically saying, "You don't know what you need, and we can't trust you to do what is best for yourself" People know what they need. If we have money to give them, just give them the money.

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…

> Every time my family had any money, they bought stuff

This is a pretty well-known phenomenon among people with unreliable income. Their default state is that they have no money, because they keep ending up there. So when there's a windfall, they don't think long-term, they just know it will be gone. So they spend it on something that provides immediate gratification.

I came from pretty dirt poor too, and saw this among my own family and friends for years.

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

#67

Post by bcoates »

jstarfish wrote: post #22
chatmasta wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the insulting part is the subtle insinuation that the money is more likely to be used to buy drugs/alcohol than for the purpose of feeding the recipient or otherwise helping them out of poverty. Even if 50% of recipients go buy drugs with the money, does it really matter? It probably costs more to enforce these conditions than the percent of funding that would go to drugs. It also creates bureaucratic overhea…

> I think the insulting part is the subtle insinuation that the money is more likely to be used to buy drugs/alcohol than for the purpose of feeding the recipient or otherwise helping them out of poverty. > Even if 50% of recipients go buy drugs with the money, does it really matter? The libertarian dream, however the unfortunate reality is that where the money is supposed to do things like feed your children, you in…

Both Food Stamps and WIC are USDA subsidy programs for agriculture and food manufacturers. They require you to buy the particular things subsidized to ensure that the funds are directed to the right recipients in the correct ratio, not because of any particular human need.

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

#68

Post by setgree »

charlesdm wrote: post #63
wutbrodo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opportunity NYC was the previous program. The current one is called Family Rewards 2.0 > On average, the program cost $13,459 per family, 48 percent of which was paid directly to families as cash rewards. This was over a three year period, which means that each family received 13459*.48/3 = $2150, or about $180/mo. So they provided between 2-5x as much money. I share your confusion though, as this is still categorica…

> 48 percent of which was paid directly to families as cash rewards. So where did the other 52% go to? Working costs of the program?

compliance and monitoring, most likely. The cash was conditioned on various attendance metrics, and the data collection process with such things is never as smooth as you'd like (I did a stint at a non-profit that ran experiments like this on behalf of economists).

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

#69

Post by [deleted] »

djtriptych wrote: post #43
linkmotif wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

It's not a huge statement. The counterargument, that most poor people are there because they consciously and continuously choose to be poor is ridiculous on its face.

[deleted]

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

#70

Post by sharemywin »

olympus wrote: post #39
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 f…

but the "cash" assistance was all about lowering costs. I get you've got costs of measuring the success rates etc, but I think the whole concepts needs to be rethought if they can't get that number much lower.
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