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What Happens When the Poor Receive a Stipend?

opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com

61–70 of 163 posts

Re: What Happens When the Poor Receive a Stipend?

#62

This is really interesting stuff. I know they touched upon it but these studies, if they really want to change things, need to do a much better job of showing an "ROI". Too often these studies seem goaled around showing that poverty has a negative impact and assume the logical next step is so we'll address that. However, many people don't have an issue with others being in poverty; particularly if they believe they'r…

I'm always surprised people yell about the U.S. not wanting to help those in poverty. I think that's pretty well refuted by noting that the U.S. is #1 in charitable giving [1]. The bigger problem seems to be people trusting government imposed redistribution schemes rather than the rejection of them altogether. [1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/19/world-giving-index-...

I'm always surprised people yell about the U.S. not wanting to help those in poverty. I think that's pretty well refuted by noting that the U.S. is #1 in charitable giving.

Pah.

There's no way that you can assess a how well a society helps its poor simply by looking at one metric (like charitable giving) alone. It's just silly, on the face of it.

Re: What Happens When the Poor Receive a Stipend?

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with your analysis is 'in general'. There are a lot of kids who fall into the Mariana trench size cracks of 'in general'.

"In general" is good for macroeconomic proposals - I'm saying if you give money to all smart kids, it would end up on average transferring money to higher income families.

[deleted]

Re: What Happens When the Poor Receive a Stipend?

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that the plurality of U.S. charity goes to religious charities. Charitable giving for health, education, and human services accounts for only 33% of all charitable giving in the U.S. How much of that goes to programs designed to address poverty is debatable. Source: http://www.alysterling.com/documents/GUSA2012ExecutiveSummar...

>>>>> xcept that the plurality of U.S. charity goes to religious charities. Who actually do quite a bit of good with it: "We should start by noting that Catholic charity work is extensive and widely considered a crucial part of the nation’s social safety net. By itself, Catholic Charities USA, has more than 2,500 local agencies that serve 10 million people annually, said Mary L. Gautier, a senior research associate a…

That doesn't really refute my point at all. Catholic charities devoted to human services are counted under human services.

I'm not sure where I said religious charities don't help people. They most certainly help members of their respective congregations. But they also can do a lot of harm, like you know, oppressing people by opposing same sex marriage, or pretty much anyone who doesn't share their religious beliefs.

Since we're focusing on catholics, what good is done by denying all of your employee's spouses insurance coverage, just so you don't have to extend the benefit to people in same sex marriages? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03...

Re: What Happens When the Poor Receive a Stipend?

#66
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what conceivable way do the people in a trailer park in a rural community receive a stipend? Your argument is incoherent and lacks a supporting argument.

There is a lot of reporting out there about how in poor rural communities there are doctors who basically give out diagnosis for disability or mental illness on less than factual medical grounds that qualify people to receive government benefits from, for example, the Social Security disability fund. The OP is asking what the difference between the thinly veiled fraud that is going on now is and giving a stipend when…

The difference between disability and a stipend is that you lose disability benefits the minute you engage in any productive activity, whereas the stipend dispersed by the Cherokee tribe came with no such conditions.

Unsurprisingly, people who are not prohibited from improving their lives tend to live better.

Re: What Happens When the Poor Receive a Stipend?

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that the plurality of U.S. charity goes to religious charities. Charitable giving for health, education, and human services accounts for only 33% of all charitable giving in the U.S. How much of that goes to programs designed to address poverty is debatable. Source: http://www.alysterling.com/documents/GUSA2012ExecutiveSummar...

>>>>> xcept that the plurality of U.S. charity goes to religious charities. Who actually do quite a bit of good with it: "We should start by noting that Catholic charity work is extensive and widely considered a crucial part of the nation’s social safety net. By itself, Catholic Charities USA, has more than 2,500 local agencies that serve 10 million people annually, said Mary L. Gautier, a senior research associate a…

10M annually, or 3.3% of the US population. Religious charities are great, but they're not a substitute for a national safety net.

Re: What Happens When the Poor Receive a Stipend?

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correction: this is what happens when poor Cherokee receive a stipend, but let's not pretend that the Cherokee are the ones we're worried about here. There are differences between the subcultures, and those differences almost certainly extend to how they treat money. Furthermore, the psychological and social difference between receiving money from a source which a population would consider to be 'theirs' cannot be ov…

You left out poor white people in your discussion. While white people do have a lower rate of poverty than blacks or latinos, they actually make up a very large majority (68.5% as of 2009) of the people living under the poverty line in the United States. [1] "... let's not pretend that the Cherokee are the ones we're worried about here." "Successfully repeating this experiment in poor black and latino populations a f…

Poor white people were left out of that comment because the writer's point was about minorities with access to a payment that didn't feel like "theirs". A poor white person receiving welfare from a largely white government/authority might not be a good comparison.

Re: What Happens When the Poor Receive a Stipend?

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is good evidence to support a guaranteed minimum income: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaranteed_minimum_income

Or a basic income: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income GMI is typically means-tested, which can mess up incentives.

And means testing adds to administrative overheads too.

Re: What Happens When the Poor Receive a Stipend?

#70
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_as_theft

The post to which I replied said "[m]ost staunch opponents", not 'some opponents'; I would like to know where the 'most' comes from.

So... what's your point? You seem to be making a semantic argument, to what end?

Sometimes there's not a germane statistic and you might just have to go off of your own lived experience.

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