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Poverty-alleviation programs like food stamps (SNAP), Social Security, and other "welfare" programs are broadly effective at reducing poverty, a new study from University of Chicago researchers found.
The study, performed by researchers Bruce Meyer and Derek Wu, conducted a more comprehensive analysis than most studies, because it used administrative data from the programs' payment records, not just survey data of recipients from the Census Bureau.
[...] For the elderly, Wu said the research found that Social Security benefits "single-handedly slashes poverty by 75%." Social Security's overall effect on all poverty is also enormous, responsible for by far the largest poverty reduction among all these programs, the study said.
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Study: Public Assistance Programs Lessen Poverty
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* m2 stares at the monitor... it looks like a hamburger...
m2 - that's a bad sign
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday May 29 2018, @05:01PM (6 children)
Just one problem here: how do you stop the less-financially-savvy part of the population from immediately blowing their UBI allotment on drugs or luxuries or gambling? Straight up giving people cash money is not the way to do this. There needs to be at minimum something like EBT cards for UBI, with some of it earmarked for rent or food.
And if we go THAT route, we need to make sure we don't end up with a few "preferred providers" for housing, food, etc., because that will end up as one of the biggest corruption magnets in human history.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @05:55PM
yes, you can't have parts of the economy be controlled and other parts not. you either need total control or none. i vote none.
(Score: 2) by Osamabobama on Tuesday May 29 2018, @06:30PM
That's easy; you don't implement UBI. If you want control over how people spent their money, UBI isn't the answer. The idea that the government might know better is really quite patronizing, but it's not revolutionary.
Actually, the need for government to cede control over how people spend their money will likely be the biggest barrier to UBI implementation. That, plus the vast amounts of money involved.
Appended to the end of comments you post. Max: 120 chars.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @06:39PM (2 children)
Most poor people are not actually bad at managing money. The few that are so bad at managing money that they would blow their UBI on alcohol or lottery tickets such that they starve by definition have an addiction problem and the solution is better mental health services, not overly complicated control over how poor people spend their money.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 29 2018, @09:26PM (1 child)
Your comment shows great wisdom (and empathy).
Azuma's comment and the tack of the story is, IMO, headed in the wrong direction.
In the 1930s, John Maynard Keynes advised President Roosevelt to make the federal government The Employer of Last Resort and to put people, idled by boom-and-bust Capitalists, back to work.
Now, Southern Democrats made sure that the New Deal programs were extremely racist and that only White people got those jobs.
So, it wasn't perfectly implemented, but 15 million people who the Capitalists wouldn't hire, were put back to work by FDR.
Along these lines, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich (a good man) recently wrote Why We Need A Federal Jobs Guarantee. [alternet.org]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday May 30 2018, @06:24AM
I'm with you on that: we need a reboot of the civilian conservation corps. Heaven knows our infrastructure needs massive refactoring. The solution is obvious. This won't be implemented because the greedheads WANT the US decaying...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 4, Touché) by VanessaE on Wednesday May 30 2018, @03:15AM
Simple: you don't. it's not the government's place to decide how a benefits recipient spends their money.