Fiscal conservative ,Social Progressive..

[roostra]

There are serious problems with causation in this "keeps people in generational poverty" argument.

Is the kid on food stamps because the mom was on food stamps? Or is the kid poor for the same reasons that the mom was poor?

I have never seen any reputable studies that show causation for the argument that "The mom took part in poverty-alleviating programs and that taught the kids to stay poor and rely on those programs."

I am a public interest attorney who has worked with low-income tenants for over a decade and this view does not match my experience. I realize that the plural of anecdote is not data, so take that for what it is worth. I would actually argue the opposite - the trauma of experiencing the brutalizing effects of poverty (unalleviated by policies designed to mitigate this harm) is much more likely to lead to a cycle of poverty.

 

[gtyellowjacket]

From what I've read these "generational poverty" generating programs are mostly a myth. Studies show that most safety net programs work as a stop gap, just as intended.

And even if a single mother gets food stamps for 18 years, it will more likely translate to a child that has a chance at success vs the alternative.

I'm not sure if its a myth as much as there is little evidence that it's causal. There are plenty of studies that show that people on government assistance are more likely to have parents on government assistance than the general population. That makes sense that kids of poor parents are more likely to be poor.

The question has always been are the government assistance program's causing the intergenerational dependence or are there other other reasons such as families not getting great education or living in crummy areas.

Here is one study that seems to indicate that government welfare is at least partly causal and that reform of social welfare programs can reduce generational dependence.

Parents’ reliance on welfare leads to more welfare use by their children, study finds

news.uchicago.edu

 

[gtyellowjacket]

There are serious problems with causation in this "keeps people in generational poverty" argument.

Is the kid on food stamps because the mom was on food stamps? Or is the kid poor for the same reasons that the mom was poor?

I have never seen any reputable studies that show causation for the argument that "The mom took part in poverty-alleviating programs and that taught the kids to stay poor and rely on those programs."

I am a public interest attorney who has worked with low-income tenants for over a decade and this view does not match my experience. I realize that the plural of anecdote is not data, so take that for what it is worth. I would actually argue the opposite - the trauma of experiencing the brutalizing effects of poverty (unalleviated by policies designed to mitigate this harm) is much more likely to lead to a cycle of poverty.

Wow. I wrote that post while you wrote yours and didn't see it till after I posted mine. I'd be interested in what you thought of that study. Do you think it would apply to the families that you deal with?

 

[Paine]

I'm not sure if its a myth as much as there is little evidence that it's causal. There are plenty of studies that show that people on government assistance are more likely to have parents on government assistance than the general population. That makes sense that kids of poor parents are more likely to be poor.

The question has always been are the government assistance program's causing the intergenerational dependence or are there other other reasons such as families not getting great education or living in crummy areas.

Here is one study that seems to indicate that government welfare is at least partly causal and that reform of social welfare programs can reduce generational dependence.

Parents’ reliance on welfare leads to more welfare use by their children, study finds

news.uchicago.edu

You’re so close to getting it.

 

[roostra]

Wow. I wrote that post while you wrote yours and didn't see it till after I posted mine. I'd be interested in what you thought of that study. Do you think it would apply to the families that you deal with?

I honestly don't think that a study of Disability Insurance usage in Norway is that generalizable to the US in areas of food stamps or Section 8 Housing. Even if there is some small amount of effect, I think it would be dwarfed by the other causal factors in poverty (lack of educational opportunities, generational trauma, mental health issues, substance abuse issues, lack of economic opportunity, racism, etc).

If the only argument against programs like this is "It will make their kids more dependent on the government in the future," think about what the implications of that are: "We should let kids go hungry so they will learn the lesson that they shouldn't be poor in the future." (To be clear, I don't think that is your position but I think it is the logical conclusion of many of these "anti poverty programs just incentivize bad behavior" statements).

Even if these programs cause dependence in some people, I think their benefits FAR FAR outweigh the downsides.

I will be honest that I have been out of the Social Science research game for a long time and have not read much on the subject (was in grad school at Carolina in the 90s but didn't stay in academia very long). But articles like this seem to indicate that if there is an effect, it is very minor, to the point of being insignificant.

Does welfare inhibit success? The long-term effects of removing low-income youth from the disability rolls | Microeconomic Insights

Despite the controversy surrounding welfare programs, there is little empirical evidence about the long-term effects of these programs on recipients. In a recent paper, Deshpande (2016), I study the long-term effects of removing low-income youth from a large cash welfare program, using a policy...

microeconomicinsights.org

 

[mpaer]

I don't think programs that keep people in generational poverty, no matter how well-intentioned, are working and we need to make changes.

And changes can be made. Changing from large public housing complexes that tended to concentrate poverty to more section 8 style housing has led to some successes.

I am not a Sociologist-but think about it . Poverty has been generational-pretty much forever. Some get out-some fall into it at some point in life..But huge chunks of poor people grew up that way At least with these programs folks get some food, some HealthCare, maybe a House without rats
These programs don't cause poverty-they help make it a bit more tolerable

 

[Kraftyheel89]

I actually interviewed with the US GAO for my first real career job. So glad I never considered it. I would not have lasted long crunching numbers and doing deep analysis for no real purpose or anyone acting on findings.

Which government programs are considered wasteful or inefficient?

As of March 2023, 38 federal programs were classified as high risk, meaning they pose a threat to public health, national security, economic growth, or citizens' rights, among other concerns.

usafacts.org

 

[UNCatTech]

I'm fine paying for that single mother although 18 years sounds like a lot but yes in some cases. The real issue that I hear about is a single mother's kids and grandkids being on similar programs. That doesn't seem like a program that's working.

And those are outliers, not the typical situation.

So do we punish the 99.9% because of the .1%?

Especially considering that people will figure out how to eat, we can support them in life or we can support them, at a higher cost, in prison.

 

[Centerpiece]

This issue gets me about as fired up as any. Tea Party Maga types simply refuse to see the value safe, clean, efficient public transportation has for all society. They just want to add traffic lanes. We fight it out all the time over bike lanes , safe streets, etc with this type. To a person, they are also against public healthcare.

I lived in Europe for 7 years. They know how to make it work. I agree with you 100%. The Charlotte gentry and bankers haven't a clue.

 

[UNCatTech]

No idea what needs to be done to fix it but things like food stamps, housing assistance, etc.

It's been a few years, but I wrote a paper in college about the welfare system. The research I found, for Georgia, was that the people receiving food stamps were getting much less that I thought, they are also limited, so the buying steak and lobster is bullshit, it's not on the list of items that can be purchased with food stamps.

We can also have programs work together. If every child received breakfast and lunch at school, that could be considered in the family need.

Just looked it up. https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/a-quick-guide-to-snap-eligibility-and-benefits

GROSS income to qualify for SNAP (GA food stamp program) for a family of 3 is $33K a year and assets totaling less than $4500.

Oh, and this: Who is not eligible? Some categories of people are not eligible for SNAP regardless of their income or assets, such as individuals who are on strike, all people without a documented immigration status. <---

 

[Centerpiece]

You’re so close to getting it.

Like me playing chess vs. the computer

 

[BlooVooDoo]

I'm fine paying for that single mother although 18 years sounds like a lot but yes in some cases. The real issue that I hear about is a single mother's kids and grandkids being on similar programs. That doesn't seem like a program that's working.

Food stamps and housing assistance aren’t intended to lift children out of poverty. They’re intended to prevent them from starving and living on the street.

 

[UNCatTech]

I'm not sure if its a myth as much as there is little evidence that it's causal. There are plenty of studies that show that people on government assistance are more likely to have parents on government assistance than the general population. That makes sense that kids of poor parents are more likely to be poor.

The question has always been are the government assistance program's causing the intergenerational dependence or are there other other reasons such as families not getting great education or living in crummy areas.

Here is one study that seems to indicate that government welfare is at least partly causal and that reform of social welfare programs can reduce generational dependence.

Parents’ reliance on welfare leads to more welfare use by their children, study finds

news.uchicago.edu

The article is about correlation. How does it show causation?

And the percentages are still outliers.

Additionally, What are the options? Let them starve? debtors prison? Government provided or subsidized jobs? The third is probably the only thing the magas would support and they would want those to be sub-minimum wage jobs.

 

[UNCatTech]

I actually interviewed with the US GAO for my first real career job. So glad I never considered it. I would not have lasted long crunching numbers and doing deep analysis for no real purpose or anyone acting on findings.

Which government programs are considered wasteful or inefficient?

As of March 2023, 38 federal programs were classified as high risk, meaning they pose a threat to public health, national security, economic growth, or citizens' rights, among other concerns.

usafacts.org

I was listening to a podcast on the way home and they mentioned how the GAO has been much better under Biden than it had in the last decade before.

I believe that everyone here knows that there are probably some areas that we can improve, but I don't believe that is the approach of the right. They simply sell the fear of socialism and promise to dismantle the government.

I wonder if the "Emergency loans for small businesses" is where MTG got her $189K of COVID relief.

 

[UNCatTech]

Like me playing chess vs. the computer

Yea, I gave up on that. I just do the daily puzzle and move on. Got tired of getting my ass handed to me.

 

[gtyellowjacket]

It's been a few years, but I wrote a paper in college about the welfare system. The research I found, for Georgia, was that the people receiving food stamps were getting much less that I thought, they are also limited, so the buying steak and lobster is bullshit, it's not on the list of items that can be purchased with food stamps.

We can also have programs work together. If every child received breakfast and lunch at school, that could be considered in the family need.

Just looked it up. https://www.cbpp.org/research/food-assistance/a-quick-guide-to-snap-eligibility-and-benefits

GROSS income to qualify for SNAP (GA food stamp program) for a family of 3 is $33K a year and assets totaling less than $4500.

Oh, and this: Who is not eligible? Some categories of people are not eligible for SNAP regardless of their income or assets, such as individuals who are on strike, all people without a documented immigration status. <---

Yeah. It's not a great life. If we can get people off of it, it's better for everyone.

 

[gtyellowjacket]

The article is about correlation. How does it show causation?

And the percentages are still outliers.

Additionally, What are the options? Let them starve? debtors prison? Government provided or subsidized jobs? The third is probably the only thing the magas would support and they would want those to be sub-minimum wage jobs.

The article is about causation. To sum it up, numerous studies have shown that there's a correlation between parents receiving welfare and their kids receiving welfare. But there haven't been too many studies that can show causation.

To do that, you would need a control group and no one's going to put up with group A of poor people getting benefits and group B of poor people not getting benefits so you can compare outcomes. It's not politically tenable. But Norway ended up doing that very thing by mistake.

And what they found was that the kids of people not getting the government benefits were significantly less likely to need those benefits as adults than very similar kids whose family did get the benefits.

They also felt there were ways to adjust Western style welfare programs to help improve outcomes for those kids. Now someone noted that it is the Netherlands so not sure how much overlap there would be with the USA but I don't think it's something we should reject out of hand either.

 

[mpaer]

The article is about causation. To sum it up, numerous studies have shown that there's a correlation between parents receiving welfare and their kids receiving welfare. But there haven't been too many studies that can show causation.

Poor people begat poor people Tons of reasons-likely almost none to do with Govt programs that help said poor people

 

[UNCatTech]

The article is about causation. To sum it up, numerous studies have shown that there's a correlation between parents receiving welfare and their kids receiving welfare. But there haven't been too many studies that can show causation.

To do that, you would need a control group and no one's going to put up with group A of poor people getting benefits and group B of poor people not getting benefits so you can compare outcomes. It's not politically tenable. But the Netherlands ended up doing that very thing by mistake.

And what they found was that the kids of people not getting the government benefits were significantly less likely to need those benefits as adults than very similar kids whose family did get the benefits.

They also felt there were ways to adjust Western style welfare programs to help improve outcomes for those kids. Now someone noted that it is the Netherlands so not sure how much overlap there would be with the USA but I don't think it's something we should reject out of hand either.

I'll read it again, but I didn't really get causation. How can they really show causation for this case?

And your first sentence is weird. You state that it is about causation, then sum it up as correlation.

I just don't see how you can claim causation. Even with a control group, there would be so many other factors.

 

[superrific]

And what they found was that the kids of people not getting the government benefits were significantly less likely to need those benefits as adults than very similar kids whose family did get the benefits.

That isn't remotely what the article found. It didn't address "need" at all. It just said that when people are denied benefits, their kids are less likely to apply for them. That's not exactly novel. When things don't work, people do less of it.