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Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional

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Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional

#21

Post by tenebrisalietum »

mathgradthrow wrote: post #15

My father and I fight about this a lot. His take is that if you give peiple money, they won't work, which will be bad. I understand his complaint, but the empirical evidence for it is that, when welfare was tied to having children, people apparently gamed the system by using less money on their kids than the welfare provided. This seems like it's probably most american's understanding of a welfare system, and my fath…

> His take is that if you give peiple money, they won't work, which will be bad.

There are a lot of people with money (high net-worth) that work (have some position in a company that they could get fired from), e.g. Jeff Bezos, many if not all CEOs, etc.

So your father's take is either A) false, or B) what people with money are doing is not work, and is therefore bad.

Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional

#22

Post by gosub100 »

Do economists share any culpability here? I thought their job was to apply their sharp minds and apply "systems" to achieve certain goals (not limited to addressing poverty). What if we compare it to other sciences?

Say we didn't understand flight as well as we do, and we have this problem where planes keep crashing, maybe 2-3 a year (like it was in the 1980s-1990s) and instead of getting to the bottom of it and fixing the underlying problem, aerospace engineers and expert pilots just shrugged their shoulders, "whelp, that sucks.." and kept up the status quo?

What if in the late '70s this new virus started spreading among gay men, and doctors just shrugged and said "well we can treat the symptoms and make our best guess how to avoid it, but damned if I know what's going on..."? How long would we keep awarding academic medals, increasing professors' salaries (and of course tuition), and lauding these doctors as heroes if they never advanced the state of their art?

Why are economists shielded from a similar failure in their chosen profession?

Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional

#23

Post by hellojesus »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #5
PopAlongKid wrote: post #3

>Instead, he proposed a “work bonus” plan that passed as the EITC in 1975, the first program to exclude the poorest Americans from government assistance by phasing in benefits alongside earned income. EITC was not initially designed as welfare, rather it was "supposed to be a temporary refundable tax credit for lower-income workers to offset the Social Security payroll tax and rising food and energy prices."[0] TFA m…

And all that's not even going into things like the pandemic business loans that were handed out like fucking candy, many to businesses that barely even existed at the time, to the tune of hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars, most of which were entirely forgiven after the fact. But that's not socialism of course, that's not "financing bad decisions" and those people definitely 100% used all that money in…

> And all that's not even going into things like the pandemic business loans that were handed out like fucking candy, many to businesses that barely even existed at the time, to the tune of hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars, most of which were entirely forgiven after the fact.

It was a terrible system with malaligned incentives, but it was the government's attempt to not violate 5A. Had those loans not been handed out like candy, the gov would have violated 5A. You cannot seize private property for public good without just compensation. As it stands, I think many folks should sue the federal and state governments for 5A violations, especially if they did not receive true just compensation for the shutdowns.

Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional

#24

Post by dfxm12 »

mathgradthrow wrote: post #15

My father and I fight about this a lot. His take is that if you give peiple money, they won't work, which will be bad. I understand his complaint, but the empirical evidence for it is that, when welfare was tied to having children, people apparently gamed the system by using less money on their kids than the welfare provided. This seems like it's probably most american's understanding of a welfare system, and my fath…

People work in Alaska. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

An employer that wields that carrot also wields that stick, and can exploit the difference to incredible social harm.

It is especially cruel that in the US, so many benefits are tied to employment. It means employers have this huge power over workers and also makes sure that it is almost impossible for some workers to invest the time and money in themselves required to gain the skills needed for better employment opportunities.

Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional

#25

Post by badpun »

mathgradthrow wrote: post #15

My father and I fight about this a lot. His take is that if you give peiple money, they won't work, which will be bad. I understand his complaint, but the empirical evidence for it is that, when welfare was tied to having children, people apparently gamed the system by using less money on their kids than the welfare provided. This seems like it's probably most american's understanding of a welfare system, and my fath…

> Employment can offer you a better life

Better in material terms, but worse in other metrics. Full time employment means you barely have any time or energy for your life outside of work. I really doubt a lot of people would chose to be subjected to that, just to have a bigger house or to be able to go for expensive vacation. I'm guessing much more people would be willing to go part-time, but that is a not very efficient in many industries.

Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional

#26

Post by governmentdude »

endisneigh wrote: post #16

If you give poor people money and they still had problems, then what? More money? There lies the problem. Children should not be poor, but how can you ensure accountability on the part of the parents?

The money solves problems, if I'm interpreting the article correctly. We usually don't concern ourselves with accountability for other government spending (from corp tax breaks for R&D to FEMA shelters/tarps, and not forgetting the infinitely juicy supply contracts, big4 consulting fees).

Why do you feel that poverty-relief is different to these other types of government spending? Why should it be held to a higher standard? What are your values?

Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional

#27

Post by endisneigh »

governmentdude wrote: post #26
endisneigh wrote: post #16

If you give poor people money and they still had problems, then what? More money? There lies the problem. Children should not be poor, but how can you ensure accountability on the part of the parents?

The money solves problems, if I'm interpreting the article correctly. We usually don't concern ourselves with accountability for other government spending (from corp tax breaks for R&D to FEMA shelters/tarps, and not forgetting the infinitely juicy supply contracts, big4 consulting fees). Why do you feel that poverty-relief is different to these other types of government spending? Why should it be held to a higher st…

When did I say it was different? There should be accountability there too.

Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional

#28

Post by gruez »

tenebrisalietum wrote: post #21
mathgradthrow wrote: post #15

My father and I fight about this a lot. His take is that if you give peiple money, they won't work, which will be bad. I understand his complaint, but the empirical evidence for it is that, when welfare was tied to having children, people apparently gamed the system by using less money on their kids than the welfare provided. This seems like it's probably most american's understanding of a welfare system, and my fath…

> His take is that if you give peiple money, they won't work, which will be bad. There are a lot of people with money (high net-worth) that work (have some position in a company that they could get fired from), e.g. Jeff Bezos, many if not all CEOs, etc. So your father's take is either A) false, or B) what people with money are doing is not work, and is therefore bad.

>There are a lot of people with money (high net-worth) that work (have some position in a company that they could get fired from), e.g. Jeff Bezos, many if not all CEOs, etc.

The exception doesn't prove the rule. Just because some really driven people are willing to be a CEO when they have far more money than they could ever need, doesn't mean that the average burger flipper is going to continue working at mcdonalds if his living expenses were fully paid by the government.

Re: Anti-poverty programs should be unconditional

#30

Post by nvahalik »

datadrivenangel wrote: post #6

We're not fighting poverty, we're fighting poor people! Which is a very expensive war, so it might be cheaper to give some of that money to the poor people, so they can spend it more effectively.

Yes, but _why_ are they poor?

This is the thing that bothers me about this conversation more than anything. It's like giving pain killers to someone who has pain—in some cases that may be the only real solution but arguably the vast, VAST majority of the time, there is a basic desire to do the same thing repeatedly hoping for a different outcome.

Giving money to people who aren't willing to change only perpetuates the problem. It's enabling them. Many people who were "formerly poor" will repeat the saying ad nauseam: poverty is a mindset. You can't "fix" poverty with money because money won't change their mind or their hearts.

IME, only small embedded organizations are good at helping folks out of this cycle. Because they are small, they know the area, they know the people, they know the cycle and they actually help people get out of that cycle.

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