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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

#71

Post by valar_m »

MechEStudent wrote: post #30

Welfare is engineered to fail, and it fails. You can't build a system by American political committee and expect it to actually work. There are known good solutions for poverty that work reliably and consistently well. That isn't what the US welfare system is engineered for. It is engineered to put money in the hands of political donors, not resolve poverty. The solution to resolving poverty, much like the Buffet rul…

> There are known good solutions for poverty that work reliably and consistently well.

Can you give some examples?

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

#72

Post by setgree »

The comments on this thread drive home why pre-analysis plans[0] are awesome. It's easy to say, after the fact: 'the grants weren't large enough, the relationship between X and Y is conceptually non-linear, those aren't the right outcomes to look at,' etc. The point is whether folks would have offered these explanations in advance.

[0] 'Promises and perils of pre-analysis plans', Ben Olken, https://economics.mit.edu/files/10654

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

#73

Post by Zungaron »

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).

Social Security is an anti-poverty measure, and it's the most successful thing the US government has ever done. Turns out that giving people money is a great way to solve the problem of not having enough money.

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

#74

Post by stevenwoo »

jdoliner wrote: post #42
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.

> Man, this type of program sounds patronizing. This program is in a very literal sense patronizing. One of the definitions of that word is providing financial assistance to someone. Another one is treating someone with an air of superiority, which is the connotation I think you meant. These two things tend to go hand in hand though, that's why they use the same word. I have trouble seeing how we could have a UBI lik…

We already have a UBI like system that isn't patronizing in the USA - it's the Alaska petroleum funds distribution to all state residents. changed link to cached since wired deleted original story http://cc.bingj.com/cache.aspx?q=study+of+alaska+comparing+u...

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

#75

Post by SilasX »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #11
linkmotif wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huh? Let me get this straight: you expect people to accept patronage. But you then don’t want the patrons to be patronizing? How does that work? Generally speaking, aren’t poor people poor because either they don’t know how to be not poor or can’t execute being not poor? Yes, sometimes it’s impossible to execute being rich, like if there is a systematic bias against a certain cohort. But cases like that aside, isn’t…

Being poor is buying a 2 pack of toilet paper for $2 rather than an 8 pack for $4 because even though the 8 pack is a much better deal, the extra $2 will buy the loaf of bread you also need.

The problem with that theory is that it implies that you could have a self-funding charity that just makes loans that enable such long-term purchases:

"Hey, don't buy the two pack. We'll buy you the 8 pack if you pay us $1/month for the next 5 months." Client saves $3. Charity gets >50% annualized ROR. Perpetual virtuous cycle that ends all poverty.

Why do you think no one's been able to pull off such a charity? Probably because the bottleneck isn't getting the initial capital, but being unable to stick to a plan even when it could pay off long-term.

It sounds like the program in the story is trying to close that gap and give more immediate rewards.

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

#76

Post by neveroffensive »

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.

No, it's a massive statement, and I think you're being intellectually dishonest to assert it's not. The counterargument is also a huge statement, none of us are saying it's not.

The only reason the counterargument is slightly more palatable is because it conforms to Occam's Razor.

> because they consciously and continuously choose to be poor is ridiculous on its face

This is a blatant straw man. We are saying they don't make wise choices for a myriad of reasons, not that they intentionally choose to be poor.

Edit:

If you make bad choices in life the end result will be poverty. That doesn't mean you chose poverty consciously.

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

#77

Post by valar_m »

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…

>I think that the problem is simple.

No. Poverty is an extraordinarily complex problem. Its root cause isn't even fully agreed upon by those who have studied it. The example in your link is not even remotely comparable or analogous.

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

#78

Post by sp332 »

linkmotif wrote: post #45
sp332 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does seem kinda random to me. "Contrary to popular belief," he wrote over the weekend, "the percentage of the population that directly encounters poverty is exceedingly high." Between the ages of 25 and 60, Rank has found, almost 40 percent of Americans will live at least one year below the poverty line. Yet over time, most also pull themselves back above of it. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/11…

Being poor happens to people who have failed to get and keep money. Sometimes that starts with you, sometimes your ancestors. Obviously it’s easier to get money if you already have it. But if you’re poor, someone didn’t get it. Could be for messed up, unfair reasons. But it’s that simple. It’s not random. Getting wiped out by a medical event means you didn’t have health insurance. Health insurance is generally afford…

Yes, I was taking it as axiomatic that poor people have less money than rich people. But having more or less money seems to correlate surprisingly weakly with knowledge or behavior. Of course people can do really dumb things but we're not talking about corner cases. I'm talking about the tens of millions of people who get poorer and then less poor without changing their knowledge or behavior very dramatically.

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

#79

Post by saint_fiasco »

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.

Crack addicts are still going to use the assistance for buying crack, just at a worse inefficient exchange rate.

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

#80

Post by djsumdog »

DanBC wrote: post #38
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...

I mean..even then..not really. That's still not a lot of money at all. I grew up with people who live mouth to paycheck.

A meaningful amount, like $400~$500 a month could make a much more considerable impact. $100/month means "Maybe we can take the kids to a movie one a month or have a nice dinner to help distract ourselves."

$500/month could mean, "We can get all those extra school supplies or put our kids in extra school programs."

Seeing if people would make those decisions would be an equally important study.

These current programs see more designed to encourage people to use free programs with a small monitary incentive. I probably says more about those programs than the impact of the money itself.

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