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America is substantially reducing poverty among children

economist.com

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Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#21

Post by m_ke »

throwaway_dcnt wrote: post #3
m_ke wrote: post #2

*Temporarily, and partially thanks to the previous administration The infrastructure bill is about to fail due to a few corrupt corporate Democrats.

If this statement has elements of truth (I mean maybe it does?), may I please see the evidence?

See this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28647021

The $300 per child per month payments are temporary and will expire at the end of the year. Before that the extended unemployment helped a lot of parents by giving them an income and allowing them to stay home and take care of their kids (which is why I said thanks to the previous administration).

The 3.5 trillion "Human Infrastructure Bill" is supposed to be voted on on Monday but it might get gutted further by Manchin and Sinema.

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#22

Post by jdavis703 »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #15
munk-a wrote: post #9

I think this (COVID relief) is the closest America is going to get to a legitimate domestic experiment on UBI we're going to get for a while so it's rather heartening to see the drop in family poverty.

Nah, it's not. Monthly lottery winners are. If you know that 'free money' is just a temporary thing, you don't quit your job and move somewhere where that amount of money is enough to survive, and just stop working.... if ubi is permanent, and guaranteed to be "enough" to minimalistically survive, many more people would do that.

I think this depends. If you work in a fungible occupation with limited career growth you very easily can take a year off. And most of these UBI experiment have targeted low-income folks who most likely work these kind of jobs.

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#23

Post by munk-a »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #15
munk-a wrote: post #9

I think this (COVID relief) is the closest America is going to get to a legitimate domestic experiment on UBI we're going to get for a while so it's rather heartening to see the drop in family poverty.

Nah, it's not. Monthly lottery winners are. If you know that 'free money' is just a temporary thing, you don't quit your job and move somewhere where that amount of money is enough to survive, and just stop working.... if ubi is permanent, and guaranteed to be "enough" to minimalistically survive, many more people would do that.

Monthly lottery winners are a pretty poor basis for evaluating UBI since that is promoting an arbitrary individual to wealth - rather than providing a baseline income to a whole community. The effects of the later can easily be conceived to be quite different from targeted welfare. One of the common counter-arguments against UBI is that because the boon is applied across the board (and not just effecting the needy) that it will essentially cancel out and just cause a momentary bump in inflation - I think there are several very logical reasons that isn't the case but lottery winners are extremely poor experiments to disprove that theory.

As an example of how prevalent that counter-argument is please see all the siblings specifically about how UBI = inflation. (Also - I don't think this debate is settled - I think there are compelling reasons why UBI is not just free inflation... but there are also several reasons suggesting that it is - the UBI counter-argument is not at all illogical).

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#24

Post by throwaway210222 »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #15
munk-a wrote: post #9

I think this (COVID relief) is the closest America is going to get to a legitimate domestic experiment on UBI we're going to get for a while so it's rather heartening to see the drop in family poverty.

Nah, it's not. Monthly lottery winners are. If you know that 'free money' is just a temporary thing, you don't quit your job and move somewhere where that amount of money is enough to survive, and just stop working.... if ubi is permanent, and guaranteed to be "enough" to minimalistically survive, many more people would do that.

> if ubi is permanent…

The most likely outcome is that very quickly all the UBI money will be going to the few landlords and soon people will need "UBI plus a job" to pay rent and make ends meet.

And whilst the masses our back out in the wilds scrounging up their money, the landlord class will be consolidating into an every smaller group.

Inflation is what happens when too much money chases a limited supply of goods. And desirable housing is always limited.

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#25

Post by x86_64Ubuntu »

DonnyV wrote: post #20

This is just PR from the Economists, so that we think everything is fine. Its NOT! Just Google and find the mountain of evidence how the US fails its children and families.

Mind you, that "current reducing != ended completely". While we are nowhere near being as performant as a Western European state, we are taking the correct steps even if for the wrong reasons (Covid pandemic).

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#26

Post by est31 »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #15
munk-a wrote: post #9

I think this (COVID relief) is the closest America is going to get to a legitimate domestic experiment on UBI we're going to get for a while so it's rather heartening to see the drop in family poverty.

Nah, it's not. Monthly lottery winners are. If you know that 'free money' is just a temporary thing, you don't quit your job and move somewhere where that amount of money is enough to survive, and just stop working.... if ubi is permanent, and guaranteed to be "enough" to minimalistically survive, many more people would do that.

If 20 quit their low wage job and one of them finally has time to study and become a researcher or doctor, I think it's worth it.

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#27

Post by chiefalchemist »

Poverty is more than an financial state. Giving away money to move someone from just below the poverty line - which is artificially low - to just above that line is honorable, but "curing" poverty is not that simple. Unfortunately, articles like this help the myth persist.

More political magician-y mumbo jumbo.

It's also important to ask: at what cost? If these monies were financed by printing more money, then that's a form of tax. It discounts all other money in circulation. Who does that hurt the most?

No doubt something should be done. Poverty is a cruel and unnecessary disease. But printing money...a one off??? Let's not over sell this. Unfortunately.

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#28

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway210222 wrote: post #24
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, it's not. Monthly lottery winners are. If you know that 'free money' is just a temporary thing, you don't quit your job and move somewhere where that amount of money is enough to survive, and just stop working.... if ubi is permanent, and guaranteed to be "enough" to minimalistically survive, many more people would do that.

> if ubi is permanent… The most likely outcome is that very quickly all the UBI money will be going to the few landlords and soon people will need "UBI plus a job" to pay rent and make ends meet. And whilst the masses our back out in the wilds scrounging up their money, the landlord class will be consolidating into an every smaller group. Inflation is what happens when too much money chases a limited supply of goods.…

[deleted]

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#29

Post by 45yu56bwedfg »

DonnyV wrote: post #20

This is just PR from the Economists, so that we think everything is fine. Its NOT! Just Google and find the mountain of evidence how the US fails its children and families.

That's because Keynesian economists have studied absolute delusion. Thankfully we now have an Austrian economic system under Bitcoin that is fundamentally sound. We'll see how that plays out.

Re: America is substantially reducing poverty among children

#30

Post by m_ke »

munk-a wrote: post #16
m_ke wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not partisan, the child tax credit that gives parents $300/month/child that was included in the "American Rescue Plan" expires at the end of the year. [1] The new infrastructure bill was supposed to include free childcare and other benefits but it's looking like it will get killed by Manchin and Sinema. [1] "The American Rescue Plan allows families to opt in to receive the monthly payments from July 15 until Dec…

I feel like the wording in your original post was particularly poor though - instead of focusing in on those two as individuals you attributed the issue to democrats as a whole - and also omitted that the bill would also pass quite easily if, say, Rand Paul and Ted Cruz decided to vote for it. You mentioned that it passed due to the previous administration (a republican administration) and was now in danger (under a…

Here's my wording for anyone who can't see it due to it being flagged:

""" *Temporarily, and partially thanks to the previous administration

The infrastructure bill is about to fail due to a few corrupt corporate Democrats. """

It's more than just Sinema and Manchin, that's why I said a few corporate democrats: https://www.businessinsider.com/house-democrats-threaten-hol...

I'm pretty left leaning by American standards and no fan of Trump, but you can't give Biden too much credit for reduction in childhood poverty when it's mostly due to the expanded unemployment benefits that were first before Biden was elected.

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