I've heard that said as if it's obtuse to concoct more complicated policies. But now I'm seeing:
[A] rigorous experiment, in a more direct test, found that years of monthly payments did nothing to boost children’s well-being.... After four years of payments, children whose parents received $333 a month from the experiment fared no better than similar children without that help, the study found. They were no more likely to develop language skills, avoid behavioral problems or developmental delays, demonstrate executive function or exhibit brain activity associated with cognitive development....
It has long been clear that children from affluent families exhibit stronger cognitive development and fewer behavioral problems, on average, than their low-income counterparts. The question is whether their advantage comes from money itself or from related forces like parental health and education, neighborhood influences or the likelihood of having two parents in the home....
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140 comments:
Money does not replace purpose.
Most leftist policies are based on theft because causing harm to others is their purpose.
They keep most of the money they take to help poor people anyways. Over 60% of money dished out by hte government for antipoverty programs goes to people who make more than 6 figures.
Foie gras
This "study" is a perfect example.
A bunch of families got 333$ a month.
A slew of full time "researchers" got paid 4-10$ a month.
4-10k$ a month
Not at all surprising. I'd have been surprised if it turned out the other way.
..."Study May Undercut Idea That Cash Payments to Poor Families Help Child Development
Rigorous new research appears to show that monthly checks intended to help disadvantaged children did little for their well-being, adding a new element to a dispute over expanded.."
This is an extension to the NYT Rhetorical Guide, the one that is fond of attaching "...without evidence..." for 'things we don't like'.
In this case, 'rigorous new research' (that we don't like) only 'appears' to show something, while the strong conclusions from the study (that we don't agree with, for political reasons) 'may' undercut long-held progressive principles of welfare miracles.
Heaven forbid that we might think that children enjoy better development in households that are well-off because their parents are more successful - and successful people tend to be better parents. What this picture needs is More Socialism !
Wow. Correlation does not equal causation! Revelation! Does the hen come from the egg or the egg from the hen? Scratching heads from the experts.
Are they beginning to realize that it isn't whether the parents have money or not, but the attitudes, abilities, habits and life styles that enabled or prevented them from being successful that makes the difference in the children's happiness and success?
Why do formerly successful people who have failed often manage to recover?
Why do so many lottery winners end up broke in a few years?
Why are success stories like JD Vance, who started life in poverty and family dysfunction so amazingly rare?
>children from affluent families exhibit stronger cognitive development and fewer behavioral problems, on average, than their low-income counterparts. The question is whether their advantage comes from money itself or from related forces like parental health and education, neighborhood influences or the likelihood of having two parents in the home....<
They need to add to that list, right up near the top, having parents who had and passed on to their kids whatever it took - gumption, genes, fire in the belly, imagination - to get themselves to affluence.
It is almost as if affluence isn't something the vast majority of wealthy people blindly stumble into.
It has long been clear that children from affluent families exhibit stronger cognitive development and fewer behavioral problems, on average, than their low-income counterparts. The question is whether their advantage comes from money itself or from related forces like parental health and education, neighborhood influences or the likelihood of having two parents in the home....
Which translates from Liberalese as; "Holy Shit! Those Christian conservatives may be on to something!"
" neighborhood influences"
I will once again put forth my Postmodern Homestead program. Instead of Section 8-ing people into nice neighborhoods in the same city, really redistribute them, all over the country. You take away the bad influences of friends and relatives, and the receiving community only has to devote a bit of its resources to one or two households. And you have the positive peer pressure of all sorts of people around you with normal lives.
It's what the Latino immigrants do voluntarily. Yes, there are barrios and mass resettlements in previously English-speaking towns and neighborhoods. But there are also truck stops in the middle of Wyoming with Guatemalan cooks. Mexican horse grooms in the middle of Tennessee. Spanish-speaking hotel cleaners in Idaho. Etc.
You wouldn't have to force anyone into Postmodern Homesteading. Just offer it. Lots of people will want to get the hell out of the barrio/jets/trailer park.
RR
JSM
Sounds like Reynolds' Law is still operative.
This reminds me of a conversation I had way back in 1990 with one of my professors at UW-Madison. It has stayed with me. His observation was that the flaw in right-wing thinking on the poor was thinking that people were poor because they are lazy. The flaw on the left was thinking that being poor was just a lack of money. It’s deeper, because poverty is a mindset. People work incredibly hard to stay poor, and more money doesn’t solve it. Need to break the poverty mindset to lead to the good choices that pull people out of poverty.
"children whose parents received $333 a month.."
were children whose parents spend $333 a month MORE, on things like Starbucks and cocaine
See, that old "teach a man to fish" guy was right after all. The devil you say!
The NYT can't figure out the flaw in this construct: "In a more direct test, found that years of monthly payments did nothing to boost children’s well-being.... After four years of payments, children whose parents received $333 a month."
First, well-being is subjective.
Second, nothing in this sentence suggests that the kid got the money. Mommie got it.
And we all know mommie spent it on wine, instead of the kid, just like child support. $333 isn't enough to even make a car payment, or anywhere near rent. It's CHUMP CHANGE.
The NYTimes is being deliberately obtuse.
StoughtonSconnie said...
The flaw on the left was thinking that being poor was just a lack of money. . . .
Almost like money is a symptom rather than a cause.
Yet the "mo money" rule is the only Rule Progressives follow when they try to "solve" problems. When the underlying problem is that there is not enough money in the Treasury to support all their exceptions to the "fair share" rule, which they twist and stretch like a rubber band.
Therefore evidence of our futility shall be ignored.
Giving money to anyone who lacks the knowledge/wisdom on it can best be spent is the equivalent of throwing it away. The issue is basically the fable of the grasshopper and the ant.
Plan/spend for today or plan/spend for tomorrow.
Pertinent question: Do you know what deferred gratification is?
https://fablesofaesop.com/the-ant-and-the-grasshopper.html
It's not done to help kids.
It's done to make us feel better about ourselves.
Now do a study on children in one-parent households, and in particular boys raised in households without their biological fathers present, and see if their lifetime positive/negative outcomes differ. Or a study looking at the decline of two-parent households beginning in the 1960s, the causes of this trend and the outcomes of different household cohorts. That would be an interesting article, hmmm, NY Times?
$333 - Guaranty that money went straight to drugs, alcohol, cigs, porn or something stupid at the local walmart.
It’s deeper, because poverty is a mindset.
Throughout history ... I mean ALL of human history, back 100,000 years (and probably more) ... "poverty" is the default.
Man literally starts with only what his mother and if he's lucky father provide and it's up to him to escape poverty.
You cannot GIVE people an escape from poverty. They have to EARN it.
George Jefferson never moved on up till he got up off his black ass and started working. That's how he got the big old apartment in the sky, sky, sky on the East Side.
333 per month per child? That is generous. Funded or indebted forcing progressive prices?
$333 isn't enough to even make a car payment, or anywhere near rent. It's CHUMP CHANGE.
Funny how in Progworld everybody working in the private sector is owed a "living wage" based on a family of four, yet everyone on "public assistance" is paid so little they can't feed the kids.
Just throwing money at problems solves them. An idea so bad that only an educated progressive would believe it.
May I suggest a new study? Provide additional cash to me, and see if I will develop a higher sense of well-being. Science, seek the truth.
If you don't care enough to work hard enough to earn enough to feed your family, you probably also don't care enough to spend enough time to ensure the kids do their homework. The greatest divide in public school outcomes is between active caring parents and lazy uncaring parents. Over a decade teaching in the same schools as Gaerie (spelling?) taught me that.
Poverty alone is not the indicator. Poverty and listlessness begets more poverty. Reliably. Takes a really self-motivated kid to overcome it.
Who are the children and who are the parents? Immigrants? Whites? Jews? Native born blacks? Why ignore these factors and lump everyone as "poor". Culture matters. Particularly with Immigrants who come from different countries. Its ridiculous to think that a poor chinese immigrant and a native born black american will raise their kids the same way.
It's called the magic dirt theory. It avoids thinking about race and average IQ. The dirt that white schools are built on are responsible for the outcome differences.
My universal solution. A black with an IQ of 86 will in a perfect world do exactly as well as a white with an IQ of 86, and he'll do it by acting white. Act white is the message.
Oh here we go:
"For a more precise test of cash guarantees, Baby’s First Years raised about $22 million from the National Institutes of Health and private foundations and recruited 1,000 poor mothers with newborns in New York, New Orleans, greater Omaha and Minneapolis-St. Paul. More than 80 percent were Black or Latino, and most were unmarried."
Again, why focus on just blacks and latinos?
It's not done to help kids.
It's done to make us feel better about ourselves.
Outsourcing virtue is no virtue.
As usual, the left will cry the money wasn't enough. No matter how often a program fails, their response is always "it needs more funding!"
I am always astounded by how hard people will work to avoid work.
I give away a lot of money. After years of it, I've come to the conclusion that it's almost always a mistake to give poor people money. Free money is spent like it has no value, no good use, something to get rid of as fast as possible. At least that how people with no money seem to think of it, which explains why they have no money in the first place.
"I will once again put forth my Postmodern Homestead program. Instead of Section 8-ing people into nice neighborhoods in the same city, really redistribute them, all over the country."
That's been going on for years already, especially under Obama, and what they found is the crime follows them wherever they go, usually in the backseat of their car.
The question is actually whether a bit over $300 a month makes a real difference.
wild chicken: really? Obama relocated poor people cross-country? I don't doubt you, but this is the first I heard of it. And I live in cities, and read a lot about city issues. Do you remember what the program is called?
RR
JSM
Another "cargo cult" program.
E.g., People who own houses seem to do better; therefore, let's force lenders to lend money those who normally wouldn't qualify. Then, having a house, they will naturally be successful.
That worked just as well in 2008, didn't it?
Almost like money is a symptom rather than a cause
I’m not going to read but any mention of the genetic component to intelligence? My selective college told me it was 70/30 in favor of nature. Why wouldn’t all the tools money garnering be the same?
Scott M: "The question is actually whether a bit over $300 a month makes a real difference."
The article isn't incredibly clear, but it appears it was $330 per mom, not per child. So depending on how many other kids she has, it could go away quick.
Still, I feed myself on about that much per month, by eating at home, waiting for grocery deals from Uber Eats and Instacart, using Amazon points, buying simple basics, etc. If the mom uses the $333 to feed herself, that does give the kids some security that whatever other money coming in is used for rent and the kids' (probably cheaper) food.
RR
JSM
If they are poor, show them the door. If they are rich, let them hitch. If immigration reform and redistributive change schemes are forcing prices and availability, then practice emigration reform and productivity improvements, respectively.
It’s teh structural racism, damn…
Liberals: "Kids with affluent families do better in school and in later life outcomes, so if we just give all poor kids money like the affluent families have, they'll do better later on."
Reality: "Kids with affluent families have the nature (genes) and the nurture (culture) passed on to them by their parents, and these are the things which made the parents affluent and also made the kids do well in life. It's not the money which makes the family excel at life, it's the excellence which allows the family to have the money."
Liberals have confused cause and effect. For that reason, they can't 'solve' the problem the way they think they can.
Life's not fair, and genetics are a huge part of that. Unless you're willing to incentivize the wider distribution of good genes (assuming that can even be determined), you're stuck with this problem forever. Which is worse, the problem or the remedy?
Maybe the differing outcomes is genetic? I know this view isn't popular these days but the evidence for it is solid. Give the generationally destitute UBI payments for life but only if they get sterilized. Accept zero migrants, legal or illegal, with IQs below 110. There are lots of things that can be done to eliminate widespread poverty and the human misery it engenders.
Liberals need to ask themselves: "Why is lighting money on fire a bad investment?"
The real advantage to these "just give them cash" systems is the lack of bureaucracy.
The problem is that we spend a lot of effort imposing various various moral requirements on them. We could shrink the government and remove a significant amount of its power by just replacing all the various complex schemes with cash. The point isn't to give people an extra, $300/month, which is nothing, but to replace food stamps/welfare/medicaid with cash.
Lately it seems like a leftist idea, but it's really a conservative/libertarian idea with a long history. For example, Milton Friedman wanted to replace most 'social' programs with a negative income tax.
Cash simply has too many negative uses to give to people. Give them what they need, but not cash. Get your own cash. Then you can do whatever you want with it.
Couldn’t they figure this out by studying the various lottery winners and how they are doing 5 years on. I remember ABC used to have a home makeover show, 9 families ending up losing their home because they were unable to manage their finances despite the help they received.
These people are unclear on the concept. If you really want to fuck the kids up, you have to give the moms at least enough to buy the kid a smartphone.
It has long been clear that children from affluent families exhibit stronger cognitive development and fewer behavioral problems, on average, than their low-income counterparts. The question is whether their advantage comes from money itself or from related forces like parental health and education, neighborhood influences or the likelihood of having two parents in the home....
The central focus of the Left in the West is to try to keep actions from having consequences.
Abortion is a sacrament to the Left because it utterly offends them that screwing around should actually have bad effects on the people who do it.
The vast majority of poor people in America are poor because that's what their behavior has earned, NOT because "big society" was mean to them.
And the Left just can handle that.
(Which makes it darkly amusing that they oppose America having an economic system that allows those without a college degree to earn a living that creates a happy life. Because the Left is of, by, and for the college indoctrinated, and so they want as much of the economic pie as possible to go to their people, not those horrible great unwashed!)
A lot of it is simply genetic. Smart people who make good choices have children with a greater disposition to be smart and make good choices. How they are raised matters, but this is the starting point.
One of the most basic fallacies of the left, with which they will never part, is that poor people are poor for some reason other than that they make bad choices. No "anti-poverty program" can succeed without taking this into account.
If you've spent much time in the company of poor people this will come as no surprise to you. Those EITC checks that land every year? Oh they are as welcome as the summer rain, like meth falling from the heavens.
While the study determines that it doesn't result in a net positive outcome, does it reduce a net negative outcome? For example, would the recipients or beneficiaries have resorted to a less savory behavior -- crime -- without the subsidy?
NYT inadvertently rediscovers the original justification for kings and monarchs.
NYT inadvertently rediscovers that IQ is a real thing.
NYT inadvertently lays the groundwork for eugenics (and destroys the equity thesis of guaranteed equal outcomes with identical inputs).
And the political pendulum swings.
"Hassayamper said...
Sounds like Reynolds' Law is still operative."
I was about to post the same thing but you beat me to it.
"whether their advantage comes from money itself or from related forces like parental health and education"
No, they're wearing the right kind of jeans.
The Grate (sic) Society revisited.
$333 - Guaranty that money went straight to drugs, alcohol, cigs, porn or something stupid at the local walmart.
People spend stupid amounts of money on (usually ugly and disgusting) tattoos. There was some sob story on one of the networks last week about a white trash single mother who couldn’t afford to buy eggs for her brood of bastards, and the woman must have had five thousand dollars’ worth of tats. Absolutely covered with them. It would turn my stomach even if she could afford them herself, but the notion that I’m helping to pay for them is infuriating.
There are a lot of factors that go into poverty, most of them cultural. A disdain for work is one of them. As Dave Chapelle inadvertently reveals in the skit from The Chapelle Show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUTUqI3SxrA
Whatever you subsidize, you get more of.
Cash is not sufficient to create culture. And family culture is one of the main drivers of achievement.
john mosby, I think you're really on to something with your Postmodern Homestead program (i.e., " really redistribute them, all over the country"). With one small change to make it totally outside the box thinking...redistribute them all over somebody else's country. Genius!
If the Mexicans can do it, so can we. It could be an awesome campaign. Instead of "Go West, young man," I suggest, "Go North, young man." Canada, baby! President Trump's already on board. Set a date and a time limit to snatch your very own 20 acres. Granted there may be some feeble resistance by the last wave of colonizers, but that's a minor issue.
For that matter, go South too. We already house, educate, and support more Mexicans than Mexico does, so that's a no brainer.
Add in Low IQ and Fatigue.
I am disgusted with these comments.
Poor people are drug users, alcoholics, and or just plain lazy?
Poor people don't care about their children?
$330 a month. What if they spent it on their children buying food and clothing. Would the outcome be different? Socialization isn't about money.
Are there people who are unable to handle the responsibility of raising a child, certainly. How many of the subjects of this study fall into that category? Certainly not all of them.
Everything about this study is wrongheaded, as are many of these comments.
Culture and home environment are the main determinations of people being able to rise above circumstances.
Stable families. Caring and observant parents. Good role models. Values. Work ethics. Education.
Parents don't always have the skills to teach but.....Schools could be a huge help here if they would cease the social engineering and taught practical skills and concentrated on academic learning. It used to be that schools routinely taught Home Economics, that entailed budgeting, cooking, household management. They also had work outreach programs where students would be able to learn some skills in occupations that they could transition into after high school. Such as: Auto-shop. Mechanical skills. Construction trades. Office skills.
I have family and friends that have NO clue how to handle money. The minute they have anything extra...they spend it on gadgets or other things they don't need...and then complain they never have any money. The same people make fun of others and claim they are too frugal, but those frugal people have more than the ones who blew through their money as fast as they can.
"The question is whether their advantage comes from money itself or from related forces like parental health and education, neighborhood influences or the likelihood of having two parents in the home...."
Heaven help us. If everyone was raised by my mother or my wife's mother (both small town, upper midwest, lots of books, lots of attention, strong religious atmosphere) the world would be a better place full of better people.
NYT rhetoric: "appears to show" rather than shows. Even suggests is stronger.
The American poor have nothing invested in their offspring. The children are just the inconvenient byproducts of sexual pleasure. Call that cruel, insensitive, or racist; I don't give damn. Yet, my claim supports the facts. Poor mother are overwhelmingly single mothers -- never married daughters of never married mothers themselves, passing on the disease to their sons and daughters. That's fundamental culture in operation, but the genesis lies in governmental policies dating back to Lyndon Baines Johnson's Great Society. The irony of that misbegotten social bowel movement is Dantesque. There was literally nothing more damaging that could have been done to America's impoverished than what LBJ instituted through the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, and I literally mean literally nothing (H/T Rachel Maddow), not even a genocide of the underachievers, monstrously outrageous as that is. Nevertheless, exterminating the worst of the indolent would have at least cleared the way for the slightly more enterprising like a mass extinction clears the way Nature's innovations. Instead of reforming the maladaptive behaviors of individuals, we are obliged to deal with a rotten subculture that perpetuates poverty, sloth, waste, and criminality within a larger culture that refuses to acknowledge evident truths.
Or maybe receiving a cash payment for nothing but existing undermines self-worth, self-discipline, and pride in accomplishment (no matter how hard a teenager worked in his first part-time job, he wouldn't make as much as he just got given as condescending charity...), and those personal qualities are more important than either parental resources or access to unearned money.
Stay-at-home moms who have failed to use that time to help their kids develop life skills don't suddenly become wonderful nurturers when they have free money? Shocker.
"Everything about this study is wrongheaded, as are many of these comments."
QED
I think people on the very low end of the IQ scale are likely to be poor in large part because of that, but I don't believe IQ is a determining factor once it is above a fairly low threshold - I believe that factors like diligence and willingness to delay gratification (i.e. save for the future) and live within one's means becomes dominant in who is likely to achieve success, at least relative to people with similar IQ's and without those traits.
"I am disgusted with these comments."
Nobody gives a shit about your mental state.
QED
Yah, jesus…those ‘x percent of people are the source of 10x percent of the problems’…people like the commentator are the X…
Also...schools that have dumbed down the curriculum in order to avoid making some feel bad. Teaching to the lowest common denominator. No accountability and passing students who can't or won't learn. Refusing to see that some students need more help and others need more challenging courses.
Schools and many cultures have become the epitomy of the fabled crab bucket theory. describes a mindset where individuals try to prevent others from succeeding, often out of jealousy or insecurity. This behavior is likened to crabs in a bucket, where one crab trying to escape is pulled back down by others, ensuring that none can escape.
There's a difference between good character and intelligence. Anyone can have good character (or a bad one). The virtues of honesty, thrift, hard work, love of family can be held by everyone.
Having said that, I'm always amazed at the scrooge like, killjoy attitude , some have toward poor people. So, middle class people can blow their money on campagne and cavier but poor people should be content with cheese and day old bread. And water.
I dont see anything wrong with poor people having some beer or a cigarettte. No matter where they money is coming from.
People with bad character and high intelligence are the real menace to society. CF: Harvey Weinstein and J. Epstein. Or Robert Maxwell. Or James Comey for that matter.
Lets not worship IQ. High intelligence is just a tool. For good and bad.
I'm with Achilles at the top of the thread and Steven. This outcome is not unexpected but it's not a reason to avoid giving cash directly. The point of doing that is the elimination of the Progressive Welfare Industry, and the multitude of perverse impacts of targeted assistance programs. To bagoh20's complaint, money is fungible so any assistance not in
monetary form either offsets poor decisions, or is easily converted into cash in the underground economy.
Poor people don't care about their children?
That's a value judgement and too broad to be a real quote from any sensible commenter. People who DO care for their kids make sure they do their homework. If the kid AIN'T it is almost always because the parent(s) fail(s) to make the child.
"Everything about this study is wrongheaded, as are many of these comments."
What is wrongheaded about the study?
Children with 110 IQs are naturally going to do much better in life on average than children with 85 IQs. That's not just because of "nature," but also "nurture": Let's say two children are born with IQs of 100. One of them belongs to a group that has an average IQ of 110; the other to a group whose average IQ is 85. The one in the 85 IQ group is going to be spending precious little time interacting with people of even average intelligence. By contrast, the one in the 110 group will rarely be spending time with anyone of significantly below-average intelligence. Even though both kids have the same IQ, the kid from the 110 IQ group stands a much better chance than the other of making good decisions, working hard in school, etc. because of the positive role-modeling he'll be exposed to.
You can’t make the transgenerational dysfunctional family learn to function by simply dropping money in their pot. Money simply assuages guilt and allows the purported benefactor to walk away until the next crisis. Rinse repeat until we are all broke. Ultimately, the tribe must take care of its own
Character is poorly correlated with intelligence. Achievement is highly correlated with temperament. Cheaters may win are reinforcing and displacing. The economic issue is supply and demand that determine prices and availability in a self-regulating market. Charity through personal investment aids rehabilitation while mitigating progressive corruption.
The war on women and men, and babies, too, was a costly liberation.
"I think people on the very low end of the IQ scale are likely to be poor in large part because of that, but I don't believe IQ is a determining factor once it is above a fairly low threshold - I believe that factors like diligence and willingness to delay gratification (i.e. save for the future) and live within one's means becomes dominant in who is likely to achieve success, at least relative to people with similar IQ's and without those traits."
There is a high positive correlation between IQ and those other traits you're alluding to. IOPW, they are not completely independent factors.
"Give them what they need, but not cash."
What they need is an entirely different outlook on life, starting with the conviction that NOTHING is owned to them by ANYONE. Giving that strikes me as impossible. It doesn't fit a box that complies with FedEx service constraints, though the concept could be promoted through the arts. Imagine Jay-Z rapping on that theme. R. Kelly would cap that muttah for a parole hearing.
I am disgusted with these comments.
There was a time, long years ago, when I might have cared what a leftist bleeding heart thought of me and my opinions, especially if she were a hot chick.
Long in the past now.
After four years of payments, children whose parents received $333 a month.....$22 million from the National Institutes of Health and private foundations and recruited 1,000 poor mothers with newborns ......
1000 moms X 333 dollars X 12 month X 4 years =15,984,000
$22 million raised minus $16 million spent on program leaves $6 million for overhead and staffing, or 27% of the total.
If the program would have taken half the money structured the experiment as a incentive, $20 payment for every 5 books the child checks out and reads. $100 for every semester the child gets on the Honor Roll. Perfect attendance bonus--$500.
Then the SAME money could have been spent, the SAME overhead and payroll for the researchers and maybe we would have an different result.
If you look at all the money that some college students recieved as student loans, you can see that there is no coorelation between shoveling cash at someone and them being more successful in life. You have to have to have intelligence and motivation to take practical advantage of any money that is given to you.
It's not the wealth a family has. It's the culture and values that resulted in that wealth being accumulated and used productively.
“ If people are poor, give them money.”
The lesson here, which experience has taught us many times but which most people seem determined not to learn, is that giving poor people money doesn’t make them less poor, it just makes more of them.
If you can show up to your job on time and sober, with a positive and friendly attitude, refrain from pilfering, shirking work, or wasting time, accept unpleasant tasks that are within your job description, take orders, receive advice and corrections gracefully, submit paperwork on time, treat customers and fellow employees well, and follow the law, you will have a successful career.
None of that requires a high or even average IQ.
A government program to take money and burn it would actually be a good thing. It's letting somebody spend it instead that causes the problem.
Social Darwinism is the greatest of the great sins according to American academia. Disgusting, outrageous pseudoscience, that's what we're told by all the best people. Nevertheless, its formidable predictive power derives almost exclusively from ideology of those same best people.
I would love to see how many who received the $333 were already on welfare or other government assistance programs. I would suspect that the outcomes for children of mothers who were poor but self-sufficient improved to a greater extent than of those whose mothers were already receiving monetary (or the equivalent, like SNAP) assistance.
Dogma and Pony, do those studies separate whether those traits are the result of high IQ, or whether they are the result of the kind of nurturing that comes from having higher IQ parents (which I believe has a strong correlation to a child's IQ)? It is really hard to tease out cause and effect in these studies.
"factors like diligence and willingness to delay gratification (i.e. save for the future) and live within one's means becomes dominant in who is likely to achieve success, at least relative to people with similar IQ's and without those traits."
There is a high positive correlation between IQ and those other traits you're alluding to.
There is. But to a pretty good extent they can be explicitly or implicitly taught. You can start, in childhood, to learn that credit cards get paid off in full every month (it's very hard to manage without something that at least acts like a credit card these days, so "only pay cash" isn't always workable any more) and therefore you need to add up what you spend (or look at your app, which will tell you) so that you know when you're at the limit of your ability to pay it off, that $5 or $20 or $50 or whatever someone knowledgeable and capable (like a parent, at first) tells you is doable for you of every paycheck goes immediately into a savings account or mutual fund, that all bills get paid on time and only then can you buy something you want, that you are not owed a living but must earn it every day. You can learn how to exercise self-discipline by following rules, even if you don't really understand why the rules exist.
This kind of self-discipline used to be a communal value in our society - almost everyone, regardless of IQ or family status, learned it. But then we went all "free to be you and me" and threw out the baby with the bathwater. So now, you have only some families that do teach these - actually I'm not going to call them "values" - these rules, and kids in those families have an advantage over kids in families where they aren't recognized as rules. But smart kids from any family background, those who innately (because of their intelligence) have a grasp of cause and effect and an understanding of delayed gratification, can pick up those rules on their own even when their own families don't hew to them.
But of course IQ is significantly heritable. So you end up with (in essence) self-discipline haves and have-nots.
Whoever you were up there who was disgusted, I suppose I could say I wish this weren't so; it would be so nice if people just knew how to behave in order to maximize their own future benefit. But... it just isn't so. We've had 80 years now of the War on Poverty that tried to cure poverty - which is in large part a result of poorly learned habits of self-discipline, and even when it really is just a run of bad luck can still be countered using habits of self-discipline - with what we called "compassion" but was instead a self-reinforcing new set of bad habits. Something like three or even four generations of children who didn't learn the rules that would benefit them, and hence don't know how to pass them on.
We already provide an average of 62K a year in direct benefits to the poorest 20% of families. Obesity is the biggest health problem among poor children. I've never done a home visit where at least one of the children's fathers isn't living in the home while the mother stays single to maximize the bennies. We need to spend a lot more money making fathers pay child support. If the parents need cognitive or childcare training or a GED, we already provide these services too. Every program needs to include a mandate to get the fathers involved. LBJ did incredible harm by not requiring anything from fathers. Clinton and Gingrich, both products of troubled homes, did a lot of good in 1996 with their welfare-to-work program, but that ignored fathers too.
It just amazes me that so few people know these things. Where I live, they even send out school buses all summer to hand-deliver meals to kids whose parents already receive food stamps and WIC.
Every recipient did not spend the money foolishly. To believe they did is stupid.
Every welfare recipient is not trash.
To believe they are is stupid.
You people act like it's easy peasy to have a normal middle class life of prosperity marriage children home ownership single income family lots of time to play with the kids educate the kids etc etc. the failures that you're playing for or from a Time when Americans were not being robbed blind by the money changing billionaires and their puppet politicians.
Nowadays most people are kept in a lower middle class economic level where it is very very difficult to make a living by a house have kids etc.
Adding just $300 a month does not change the structural economic pressure that is lower income people are dealing with.
Rather than blame the poor maybe you should turn your attention to the people that are caught up in the Jeffrey Epstein Lolita Island scandal who have stolen our money and our birthright.
But no, in order to post your own low self-esteem and deep insecurities you must blame the poor people. This is why people think that you trumpers are judgemental greedy evil scum.
How much money must you take from others, to give to others, for you to feel better about those you took the money from?
The thing is, I grew up poor and therefore socialized with a lot of poor people. And from that I learned something profound, most poor people are jerks. Low time horizons, lack of impulse control, often quite violent. Admittedly, not all of them were like that. And the ones that weren't lifted themselves out of poverty. But giving money to the jerks isn't going to help anybody.
This scheme would not go over well with those who have to work for their $300 a month.
Dave Chappelle's joke about being poor says a lot.
" Remember my son, we are not poor. Poor is a mindset.
We're broke!"
Why is this a big surprise.
Just how many in America don't pay income tax? The number is growing.
IQ generally marries like IQ - more or less. I've walked into more classrooms than I'd like to admit where the average IQ is about 70-80. And I've walked into classroom where the IQ is 100-120. Those gene groups are being passed along by like minded people.
Howard and HIS people want to wash their hands of facilitating decades of dependence on the government and the always useful pointing the finger of blame at The Man.
Howard, how many people have you pulled out of poverty with your philosophy? Any poor person who adopts your thinking is doomed. People who are harder and more demanding of the "poor", and who refuse your pat excuses are the people who change their lives. Your approach has impoverished millions who could have been productive, but were given an alternative to success by those who wanted to feel "compassionate" regardless of the cost.
I am always astounded by how hard people will work to avoid work.
Yep. I discovered that way back when I did constituent work for a state legislator.
If people spent half the effort/energy into finding a job as they did to keep the unemployment bennies flowing, they'd be fully employed within a week.
Low time horizons, lack of impulse control, often quite violent.
The inability to visualize the future seems to me to be the biggest handicap faced by chronically poor people - but we need to be sure we get the direction of the causation arrow correct. Can they not see into the future because they are poor and the difficulty of their lives leaves them without the bandwidth? Or are they poor because they can't see into the future?
Howard - I don't think many people here are "blaming the poor." In fact, almost everyone is explicitly blaming the liberal/progressive mindset that, cargo-cultlike, acts as if giving people the trappings of that "better life" will work some kind of magic on people who have never been taught how to acquire it or keep it.
This is why in my (typically overlong) comment above, I was talking about how our society used to teach rules that amounted to self-discipline and deferral of gratification - because some fraction of humans can't just do those things on their own, but they can be taught rules. And sometime in the - maybe late '50s? Surely by the mid-'60s, our (ahem, Great) society decided that telling people what to do was just mean, and instead we should act only with "compassion"... therefore leaving those people who couldn't intuit the rules that lead to success with a different and harmful set of incentives (which, as anyone who has ever raised a child or even a pet knows, function just like rules, but frequently have consequences unforeseen by the incentive-creator). And even those who might be able to Intuit those rules still have those bad incentives to cope with.
You see signs that say, "Don't feed the wildlife". Why? Cause it encourages them to come and get 'free stuff'. You are making the mistake of giving people 'free money' or 'free food' just encouraging them to not work for it.
So you need signs that say, "NO WORK, NO EAT". And give make work for the homeless. Clear highway trash, help build infrastructure, fixing graffiti, cleaning streets, even highway flagmen (not all homeless are crazy, some are just lazy.) I am sure there are ways they can work for their meals and lodging such as pre-fab houses they can stay in (for a low rent) as they work.
Now I am not saying to refuse to help the TRULY NEEDY. The crippled, blind, deaf, those that have a very hard time fitting into society. Yes there is compassion for those. Places like the Salvation Army where there are RULES (no drugs, go to church, try to find a job, etc..) I've toured the Salvation Army.. nice little apartments. They serve food there to. But they require some effort on those that go there.
Seems like long time ago this guy, Captain John Smith, said the same thing at Jamestown a three hundred years ago or so... so did St. Paul, two thousand years ago, wrote in 2 Thessalonians 3:10, "For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, If any will not work, neither let him eat. "
So.. NO WORK, NO EAT. Stand up on your own da*n feet and get a job.
“He who does not work shall not eat.” - 2 Thessalonians 3:10
Here's what we know from research:
Top Employer:
Walmart is consistently identified as a top employer of SNAP recipients.
Specific Numbers:
In a study of nine states, 14,500 Walmart employees received SNAP benefits.
Full-time Workers:
A significant portion of SNAP recipients are full-time workers, with many in the retail sector.
Public Assistance:
This reliance on public assistance programs like SNAP and Medicaid highlights the need for living wages and benefits.
State Variations:
The percentage of Walmart employees on food stamps likely varies by state due to factors like minimum wage and cost of living.
Thomas Sowell says that 80% of the people currently in the bottom quintile WON'T be there in 10(?) years. MOST poor people move up and out..
So, there is a fifth of a fifth (20% of the bottom quintile) that are STUCK there... THESE are "the poor".
The rest are just "broke", cause they're just starting out.
ie: poor isn't about money, or things, it's about attitude
(and drugs)
This YT video has a narrower focus - tourists giving school supplies, money, or candy to local children, but is a good presentation of the topic. English captions are available.
https://youtu.be/l_lGPh0n8O0?feature=shared
"If people spent half the effort/energy into finding a job as they did to keep the unemployment bennies flowing, they'd be fully employed within a week."
fun memory from the mid '80s..
we were standing outside the Student Union in ames, passing around a cigarette; waiting for the band to get done with their break.
A friend of mine said to an associate of mine:
"Hey? have you found a job yet?"
and the associate said:
"Nah, but i'll have to start looking next week; my unemployment runs out then"
I said, that i thought that you HAD to actually look for work, WHILE on unemployment. Turns out, that you can just apply for jobs that you'll NEVER get, then you've got another week coming.
Another guy then piped up, and told us about this BOGUS PLACE where he'd applied.. And they'd offered him the job; which meant he had to go and apply somewhere else.
The thing is: the week the unemployment expires, people start working
American Eagle is right: money can't take the place of good jeans.
How long before this study’s authors get cancelled and apologize for their heresy?
I said, that i thought that you HAD to actually look for work, WHILE on unemployment. Turns out, that you can just apply for jobs that you'll NEVER get, then you've got another week coming.
Love the little bullshit anecdote. Of course it doesn't make any sense at all. Were you recently graduated? If so, where was your friend working before? Did he quit or was he laid off (through no fault of his own)? Because even if he actually had a job for a full year before he was laid off (assuming he was in college) then his unemployment wouldn't have been enough to keep him in beer, maybe that was why you were all sharing a cigarette.
Redistributive change schemes do, at best, suppress symptoms of poverty. A 'burden" that is presumably aborted and sequestered only to progress and expose systemic DEIsm under an inclusive umbrella incorporation.
You people act like it's easy peasy to have a normal middle class life
The typical bleeding heart response to criticism of any and every wealth redistribution program. I don’t see anyone here acting like it's easy peasy, I think ‘you people’ act like it’s hard to do but within reach for anyone willing to work and sacrifice to achieve it. The criticism is largely for the negative incentives welfare and benefit programs create…personally, I find it difficult to fault anyone staying on the dole as there is an element of rationality to it. Hence, hate the programs…
(NYT)(gift link)
…second prize was two gift links…
Let them eat cake was not an insult, but it's also not a sustainable, healthy solution.
Ron Winklehimer said, "The thing is, I grew up poor and therefore socialized with a lot of poor people. And from that I learned something profound, most poor people are jerks. Low time horizons, lack of impulse control, often quite violent. Admittedly, not all of them were like that. And the ones that weren't lifted themselves out of poverty. But giving money to the jerks isn't going to help anybody."
That is pretty much what I came here to say. I live in an area where people on the low end of the socio-economic scale live, too, and shop in the same stores. I see a whole package of jerk behavior. There are people who shop at my neigborhood grocery store and just drop off things anywhere when they decide against buying them. My favorite was when I spotted a jug of milk in the cereal aisle. How convenient to be able to pick up your milk and cereal together. It's a great time saver.
They should have given the money to middle class white families, where something useful might have been done with it.
Another case of "Sorry, But Your Soul Just Died"
Tom Wolfe
Genetic predestination
https://www3.nd.edu/~afreddos/courses/43151/WolfeSoulDied.php.htm
Every child is roll of the dice in our game against the universe. The more children, the more chances you get.
Yeah, some (or all) may be losers. Its not a nice universe.
The odds improve if the kids parents have positive survival traits.
Let's assume that this study demonstrates the futility of supplemental income programs. (It suggests that, but certainly doesn't prove it). Wouldn't that simply transpose the issue of inequality from the lack of seed capital to the utterly intractable realm of social status as a deterministic construct? Now what???
FullMoon said...
Every recipient did not spend the money foolishly. To believe they did is stupid.
Every welfare recipient is not trash.
To believe they are is stupid.
Just like the last guy I quoted. No one here said “every recipient” about any of your deplorable suggestions. We offered reasonable analysis and first person accounts.
You show up with your straw man and beat him to death in front of us. Helluva performance old boy. Congrats on winning the argument with your imagination.
In a study of nine states, 14,500 Walmart employees received SNAP benefits.
Of course, this only accounts for 0.90% of all Walmart employees.
When I grew up it was fairly easy to get out of poverty. In my case I joined the Army, picked a job that there was a market for, and took advantage of the educational opportunities offered. Other people learned a trade through programs offered in high school. But that was before corporations had shipped all the jobs overseas that they could and importing illegal slave labor when they couldn't.
Fred asked (so i'll respond SLOWLY)..
" Were you recently graduated?
No, Fred, we were College Dropouts..
"where was your friend working before?
he was working at a factory..
"maybe that was why you were all sharing a cigarette.
i'm assuming that you're retarded?
Gosh darn it, in my day we had comption. We had "get and go". Why, we walked 20 miles in the snow to work every day and we loved it. We pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps and then we hung commies with them.
If only everyone would just work hard, they'd all be billionaires like Zuckerberg. Cause thats why people get rich. Hard work.
"ie: poor isn't about money, or things, it's about attitude
(and drugs)"
There it is.
There is already a natural experiment with decades of subjects to examine. Compare the outcomes of those children who received Social Security dependents payments due to the death of one or both parents to payments via the other 'welfare" programs.
As an orphan raised by a widowed grandmother, I always balk at the Conservative pronouncement that a child without a father in the house is doomed to drugs, prison, promiscuity, etc.
I can name five who grew up without a father. Four boys and one girl. None became drug addicts, not went to prison or had criminal issues growing up, or had promiscuity issues. The worst would be my brother's drinking that came late and after being successful up to 50. Fifty being when for all, employment becomes shaky as companies sought to dump Boomers as they aged in the early 2000s.
"Cause thats why people get rich. Hard work."
Don't be silly. Some of them become politicians.
the Conservative pronouncement that a child without a father in the house is doomed to drugs, ...
Conservatives make no such claim. As for the two parent household with both a mother and father, that is a property of natural selection.
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