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

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

#71

Post by gnaritas »

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #29
thaumasiotes wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I understand it, the idea of a voucher is that the for-profit entity receives the money after the end beneficiary does, which wouldn't affect how much the end beneficiary gets. What are you talking about?

Some programs, like schools, dispense services rather than cash. If you're talking about direct payment programs these are extremely efficient: 4.5% for SCHIP in 2005, for example. Other direct payment programs have higher overhead because they are means-tested (another conservative victory) and it costs money to administer means-tested programs. Amusingly, the US state of Florida in 2011 enacted another one of those…

Republicans seem to despise moochers more than wasting money, despite all their claims to be doing it to save money.

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

#72

Post by [deleted] »

jcroll wrote: post #52
justinpombrio wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably because $20 goes further in Kenya than in wealthier countries.

My only point is that to me, giving cash to Kenyans and giving cash to beggars seems morally equivalent. Not saying you shouldn't do either but I do think if you give Kenyans cash but have qualms with giving beggars money, well I don't think that makes much sense.

[deleted]

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

#73

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#74

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#75

Post by yummyfajitas »

up_and_up wrote: post #32
ekianjo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are not starving in America.Please visit poor countries before drawing parrallels.

Sorry, but people are starving in America: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/US/hunger-children-america-slow... Are you aware that many kids in America grow up without access to even a basic grocery store and decent nutrition? Starvation can be slow and steady.

Hunger among children is a bigger problem for wealthier families (earning >400% of the poverty line) than for the poor.

http://mchb.hrsa.gov/chusa11/hstat/hsa/pages/221oo.html

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

#76

Post by icebraining »

[deleted] wrote: post #73
karlmdavis wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]

That's the measure of effectiveness from a bourgeois perspective, who considers themselves superior because their families are more endowed.

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

#77

Post by ekianjo »

up_and_up wrote: post #32
ekianjo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are not starving in America.Please visit poor countries before drawing parrallels.

Sorry, but people are starving in America: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/US/hunger-children-america-slow... Are you aware that many kids in America grow up without access to even a basic grocery store and decent nutrition? Starvation can be slow and steady.

Sorry, your first world starvationhas nothing to do with the thurd world poverty you have probably never seen in your life. Stop spreading myths or half truths and get out and see for yourself what i amtalking about.

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

#78

Post by willvarfar »

nether wrote: post #53
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...

It was also covered by Planet Money and written up: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/magazine/is-it-nuts-to-giv... PM also followed an American building contractor who was attempting to build a schoolhouse in Haiti. The guy landed in the country pretty gung-ho, ready to apply his extensive experience to building something relatively simple. He had never done aidwork in a developing country. After many delays and run…

Would just giving them money combat corruption?

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

#79

Post by yummyfajitas »

tothebatfax wrote: post #51
code_duck wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, some people absolutely need to be told to buy their kid a jacket vs. a large bag of cocaine.

I think this is feeding into a prevalent and false narrative that persons in poverty are all drug addicts or welfare queens. Christian Parenti really sums it up well when he describes American views on poverty in his book, The Soft Cage: "In a society that denies the true causes of poverty—low wages and structural unemployment—the poor necessarily show up as objects of mystery to be examined, measured, interrogated,…

This is silly - the poor are not unemployed, structurally or otherwise. To be unemployed one must be looking for work, which most American poor are not.

http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2011.pdf

Your source [2] also disagrees with you. When Florida implemented drug testing, they spent $46k to identify 108 drug users (presumably taking them off the welfare rolls). Unless welfare costs less than $425/person, that's a net savings. Further, according to the article linked to by [2] (http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/story...), the actual number in Florida is closer to 2000 people since 2000 people withdrew their welfare applications when they reached the drug testing stage.

(The comparable number in Utah was $2000/person, if we assume Utah's program had no deterrent effect whatsoever. Arizona's program seems less effective, likely because the drug tests were easy to avoid - just don't tell the welfare clerk you do drugs and you can skip the test.)

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

#80

Post by praxulus »

jcroll wrote: post #52
justinpombrio wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Presumably because $20 goes further in Kenya than in wealthier countries.

My only point is that to me, giving cash to Kenyans and giving cash to beggars seems morally equivalent. Not saying you shouldn't do either but I do think if you give Kenyans cash but have qualms with giving beggars money, well I don't think that makes much sense.

Morally they're equivalent, but practically they're not.

While I would like those beggars to receive money, I don't want them to be the exclusive recipients of cash aid, excluding the many poor people who don't happen to be actually begging on the street. I want an organized program that takes the available cash (donations or taxes) and distributes it in a "fair" way among the poor. What constitutes fair is difficult to answer, but I certainly don't have enough information available to make that decision right when someone asks me for money.

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