<story><title> What Happens When the Poor Receive a Stipend?</title><url>http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/18/what-happens-when-the-poor-receive-a-stipend/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jusben1369</author><text>This is really interesting stuff. I know they touched upon it but these studies, if they really want to change things, need to do a much better job of showing an &amp;quot;ROI&amp;quot;. Too often these studies seem goaled around showing that poverty has a negative impact and assume the logical next step is so we&amp;#x27;ll address that. However, many people don&amp;#x27;t have an issue with others being in poverty; particularly if they believe they&amp;#x27;re being asked to have to take anything out of their pocket to solve that problem.&lt;p&gt;Generalizing; those that are against wealth redistribution aren&amp;#x27;t going to be convinced otherwise based on the decrease in mental illness amongst the poor or higher grades in school. The numbers around the cost of someone spending a year or more incarcerated is well known. The cost of a transfer is well known. &lt;i&gt;IF&lt;/i&gt; you can show &amp;quot;You really want to ensure that a family of 4 has this much coming into the household to ensure it doesn&amp;#x27;t cost &lt;i&gt;you&lt;/i&gt; much more later&amp;quot; then you could go a long way to bringing new supporters into the fray.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>_delirium</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m not sure that is really the best group to target though. The people who are simply against any redistribution, full stop, even if it works, are a minority in most countries and probably not necessary to a political coalition to do something about poverty.&lt;p&gt;A pretty large group, however, are people who think that poverty-fighting schemes would be good in principle, but they are skeptical whether such schemes work in practice. A common criticism is that what seems like a good idea ends up backfiring, is abused, produces dependency, etc. Many economists are in that group, of people who would support a poverty-reduction scheme if they thought it worked and didn&amp;#x27;t cause larger problems. I see that as the class of objections that these studies are looking to corroborate or refute.</text></comment>
<story><title> What Happens When the Poor Receive a Stipend?</title><url>http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/18/what-happens-when-the-poor-receive-a-stipend/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>jusben1369</author><text>This is really interesting stuff. I know they touched upon it but these studies, if they really want to change things, need to do a much better job of showing an &amp;quot;ROI&amp;quot;. Too often these studies seem goaled around showing that poverty has a negative impact and assume the logical next step is so we&amp;#x27;ll address that. However, many people don&amp;#x27;t have an issue with others being in poverty; particularly if they believe they&amp;#x27;re being asked to have to take anything out of their pocket to solve that problem.&lt;p&gt;Generalizing; those that are against wealth redistribution aren&amp;#x27;t going to be convinced otherwise based on the decrease in mental illness amongst the poor or higher grades in school. The numbers around the cost of someone spending a year or more incarcerated is well known. The cost of a transfer is well known. &lt;i&gt;IF&lt;/i&gt; you can show &amp;quot;You really want to ensure that a family of 4 has this much coming into the household to ensure it doesn&amp;#x27;t cost &lt;i&gt;you&lt;/i&gt; much more later&amp;quot; then you could go a long way to bringing new supporters into the fray.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>chc</author><text>No. Most staunch opponents of wealth redistribution oppose it on principle, not practical terms. You can tell them in very concrete terms that their tax dollars will benefit them more than it would hurt them and their reply will be, &amp;quot;Well, then you should let me distribute my money that way instead of taking it and doing it yourself.&amp;quot;</text></comment>