Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Research Finds Outright Grants of Cash are an Effective Form of Aid to the Poor

news.columbia.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 133 posts

Re: Research Finds Outright Grants of Cash are an Effective Form of Aid to the Poor

#41

Post by klenwell »

waps wrote: post #33
ma2rten wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition... The simple fact that someone came after those people to check what they did with their money, for the purpose of the research, probably influenced the result (at least if they knew or suspected that beforehand). If they said they would use the money for business, but then instead spend it alcohol and gambling, that would be very embarrassing. If on the other hand, a program like exists this for a long…

I think you've just hit the nail on the head. Gifts in this program have the same function as loans would traditionally have : they are supposed to be invested in improving one's life. They were obviously not free, the money was traded for promises that carry a social cost if one doesn't deliver. A basic income would have no such effect. If it's enough to live on, why would everyone invest it in becoming a better and…

Ah yes, the undeserving poor. Alfred P. Doolittle gave a pretty good accounting of what they might do with it in Shaw's Pygmalion:

I ask you, what am I? I'm one of the undeserving poor: that's what I am. Think of what that means to a man. It means that he's up agen middle class morality all the time. If there's anything going, and I put in for a bit of it, it's always the same story: "You're undeserving; so you can't have it." But my needs is as great as the most deserving widow's that ever got money out of six different charities in one week for the death of the same husband. I don't need less than a deserving man: I need more. I don't eat less hearty than him; and I drink a lot more. I want a bit of amusement, cause I'm a thinking man. I want cheerfulness and a song and a band when I feel low. Well, they charge me just the same for everything as they charge the deserving. What is middle class morality? Just an excuse for never giving me anything... Don't you be afraid that I'll save it and spare it and live idle on it. There won't be a penny of it left by Monday: I'll have to go to work same as if I'd never had it. It won't pauperize me, you bet. Just one good spree for myself and the missus, giving pleasure to ourselves and employment to others, and satisfaction to you to think it's not been throwed away. You couldn't spend it better.

Re: Research Finds Outright Grants of Cash are an Effective Form of Aid to the Poor

#42

Post by prostoalex »

up_and_up wrote: post #37
cjbprime wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but the starving child in Boston in your article went to a nearby world-class hospital where he was given free food. Poverty exists in the US; extreme poverty (living under the purchasing power equivalent of USD $1.25 per day) is extremely rare ( http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/rwss/docs/2010/chapter2.pdf

Extremely rare? 313900000 * 0.005 = 1,569,500 people living on $1.25/day in the USA?

How can that number be true if food stamp benefits net roughly $200, and earned income tax credit is $487 for a single person? Both numbers go up significantly if children are involved.

Re: Research Finds Outright Grants of Cash are an Effective Form of Aid to the Poor

#43

Post by iambateman »

prostoalex wrote: post #42
up_and_up wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extremely rare? 313900000 * 0.005 = 1,569,500 people living on $1.25/day in the USA?

How can that number be true if food stamp benefits net roughly $200, and earned income tax credit is $487 for a single person? Both numbers go up significantly if children are involved.

Very easily...if people don't have access to those services.

Illegal immigrants, homeless with no ID.

Re: Research Finds Outright Grants of Cash are an Effective Form of Aid to the Poor

#44

Post by karlmdavis »

waps wrote: post #33
ma2rten wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition... The simple fact that someone came after those people to check what they did with their money, for the purpose of the research, probably influenced the result (at least if they knew or suspected that beforehand). If they said they would use the money for business, but then instead spend it alcohol and gambling, that would be very embarrassing. If on the other hand, a program like exists this for a long…

I think you've just hit the nail on the head. Gifts in this program have the same function as loans would traditionally have : they are supposed to be invested in improving one's life. They were obviously not free, the money was traded for promises that carry a social cost if one doesn't deliver. A basic income would have no such effect. If it's enough to live on, why would everyone invest it in becoming a better and…

Don't this:

> The aggregate effect of free money is what will determine the outcome.

And this:

> Not what exceptional individuals might achieve with it, but what a lazy drunkard would achieve with it matters)

Contradict each other? The "aggregate effect" = "lazy drunkards" + the effect of "exceptional individuals" + the effect of everyone else. So it really isn't the lazy drunkards that matter; it's the overall effect that does. If, on average, it improves society then isn't that a win?

Very often, when talking about basic incomes and similar programs, people seem to say things like "twice as many people will take advantage of the system and be lazy." To me, that's not a sufficient criticism: it all depends on the percentages. If a program increases the percentage of bottom feeders from 1% to 2%, say, but also doubles the quality of life of everyone else, that would be a huge win to me. Obviously, the numbers I chose in my example are probably unrealistic, which just further illustrates how important it is to actually determine what the numbers are/will be.

Re: Research Finds Outright Grants of Cash are an Effective Form of Aid to the Poor

#45

Post by waps »

karlmdavis wrote: post #44
waps wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you've just hit the nail on the head. Gifts in this program have the same function as loans would traditionally have : they are supposed to be invested in improving one's life. They were obviously not free, the money was traded for promises that carry a social cost if one doesn't deliver. A basic income would have no such effect. If it's enough to live on, why would everyone invest it in becoming a better and…

Don't this: > The aggregate effect of free money is what will determine the outcome. And this: > Not what exceptional individuals might achieve with it, but what a lazy drunkard would achieve with it matters) Contradict each other? The "aggregate effect" = "lazy drunkards" + the effect of "exceptional individuals" + the effect of everyone else. So it really isn't the lazy drunkards that matter; it's the overall effec…

You're right. That was wrong. I obviously meant it's the effect of A plus B.

It would depend on the amount of "bottom feeders". That's a bad way to define it though, "non-productives" might be better, since it would include pensioners, children, students (including people who go back to studying if this program is introduced, but are older than 0-24 years), really ill people, ... mostly not people I'd define as bottom feeders.

I would say that it's a lot larger than 1-2%. Let's assume that a lower bound on the non-productive people would be 30% of the total (which would mean tax levels need to be, at bare minimum . I would say that various factors are going to make that close to 50% over a period of time that's not very long.

Suppose you'd have the same tax level for these things as you currently have for social programs + medical programs (~50% of total taxes), then here's how much it could be (ignoring administration costs, which would take another bite):

Non-active population => basic income possible using 50% of govt. budget

30% => 11,249

40% => 9,642

50% => 8,035

60% => 6,428

70% => 4,821

(the current labor force participation rate is 65%. Since that is likely to drop, prudence would suggest you take the 50% or 60% figure as realistic. Increases in the govt. budget dedicated to this cannot make these numbers rise by a significant amount. So I would think the 30% figure is the maximum attainable even if the military were to be defunded)

Since even the largest of these numbers is only barely sufficient to live + insurance + ... is this really worth it ? This amount is not of the level that it's going to do what this program needs to do to improve our economic situation : give the poor disposable income.

The basic problem we have is of a different nature. We do not have any economic reason for 70% of the world population to be alive, and that number is growing fast. In the US that number is currently amazingly low, but it's bound to rise as well.

Re: Research Finds Outright Grants of Cash are an Effective Form of Aid to the Poor

#46

Post by aspensmonster »

jlgreco wrote: post #39
up_and_up wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extremely rare? 313900000 * 0.005 = 1,569,500 people living on $1.25/day in the USA?

That seems like a reasonable definition of "extremely rare". Platinum is extremely rare, several hundred tons of it are mined every year. (A number that sounds incredibly heavy, but pales in comparison to the numbers of common metals.) Half a percentage is "extremely rare" compared to numbers like 50%. Most people in America have absolutely no experience with the sort of poverty that is nearly inescapable in many und…

Well, I can see it didn't take long at all for the Oppression Olympics to get underway.

Edit: -1? Impress me.

Re: Research Finds Outright Grants of Cash are an Effective Form of Aid to the Poor

#47

Post by vellum »

hristov wrote: post #27

The problem with cash grants is something that does not show up when there is a Columbia professor watching things. And that is that the money gets stolen. Many poor countries suffer from corrupt callous and cruel leadership. And this means that the people in power tend to steal from the poor. Thus, if some organization tries to give cash to the poor there is a high likelihood that the money will be stolen and sent t…

As other posters have pointed out, using mobile payments bypasses corrupt middlemen. Afghanistan has started paying rural police using mobiles, and some of them are seeing "raises" >1/3 their salary.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/17/m-paisa-ending-afghan-corru...

Re: Research Finds Outright Grants of Cash are an Effective Form of Aid to the Poor

#49

Post by jcroll »

cjbprime wrote: post #3

If you find this persuasive, consider donating to http://www.givedirectly.org/ , which performs unconditional cash transfers to the poorest people in Kenya. Give Directly is the subject of this writeup[1] on GiveWell, and this excellent episode[2] of This American Life. [1]: http://www.givewell.org/international/top-charities/give-dir... [2]: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/503/i...

Why not hand the next beggar you see a $20?

Re: Research Finds Outright Grants of Cash are an Effective Form of Aid to the Poor

#50

Post by justinpombrio »

jcroll wrote: post #49
cjbprime wrote: post #3

If you find this persuasive, consider donating to http://www.givedirectly.org/ , which performs unconditional cash transfers to the poorest people in Kenya. Give Directly is the subject of this writeup[1] on GiveWell, and this excellent episode[2] of This American Life. [1]: http://www.givewell.org/international/top-charities/give-dir... [2]: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/503/i...

Why not hand the next beggar you see a $20?

Presumably because $20 goes further in Kenya than in wealthier countries.
Post reply on HN