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The question isn't wether there are problems with direct cash, but rather if it has fewer problems than existing systems, which this study finds evidence of. T

The question isn't wether there are problems with direct cash, but rather if it has fewer problems than existing systems, which this study finds evidence of. The political problem of direct cash transfers is that people find them odious. Money is earned and should not be given, but food can be. This is incredibly illogical but it's our political reality, one that can hopefully be changed.

mminer237 6y ago
This is on top of already existing systems though. I don't think many people ever doubted that giving everyone an extra $12k per year or whatever made out of thin air would help some people, but in real life, the money has to come from somewhere. Plenty of people don't want to pay the increase in taxes that would be necessary to help the homeless publicly like that. Many people believe that more targeted spending is a more efficient and possibly a more effective way to help the homeless. Converting current public aid to just cash payments would probably be less effective. It's not illogical to prefer giving food and housing to cash. Somewhere around a third of homeless people are addicted to drugs or alcohol. Many have mental problems or just very bad financial skills. Many don't have a way to keep that money safe. If you give homeless people money, there's a very good chance it'll be blown on drugs, booze, or lotto tickets or just stolen. Some people it will help; some it won't. Whereas if you take that same increase in funding proposed and instead, say, expand housing programs, fund food banks, or provide mental health treatment, you know all that money is going to help people. Plus it can help people in ways that they may not help themselves otherwise.
- dragonwriter 6y ago
  > I don't think many people ever doubted that giving everyone an extra $12k per year or whatever made out of thin air would help some people, but in real life, the money has to come from somewhere. No, in real life money (especially in a country whose debt is denominated in currency it controls) is, almost literally, just made out of thin air. There are consequences of having more money around, and sometimes it is useful to destroy some money in a different distribution to offset some of the effects of creating money that was created and distributed a particular way, but that's a different issue. (This is the relatively uncontroversial part of Modern Monetary Theory; the controversial part is the follow-up “...and, therefore, we she engage in deficit spending a lot more freely than we do now.” The myth of the fisc (a metaphor held over from commodity money times when it was a decent repres5 of reality) is that money has to come from somewhere. > Plenty of people don't want to pay the increase in taxes that would be necessary to help the homeless publicly like that. The idea that taxes are necessary to pay for spending is the myth of the fisc. It's true only to the extent that the government decides it should be true. (Which, as much as people in government talk about it when opposing spending they don't like or promoting tax increases they do like, isn't all that much, hence the absence of anything approximating long-term fiscal balance.) > Whereas if you take that same increase in funding proposed and instead, say, expand housing programs, fund food banks, or provide mental health treatment, you know all that money is going to help people. No, you don't; waste, fraud, and abuse in selectively targeted government programs is a very, very real thing, and a lot of the money that doesn't go into waste, fraud, and abuse goes into control measures to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse, instead of to the actual program purpose. Source: more than 20 years in public sector work, the part of it that wasn't in IT specifically in fiscal management aimed at accounting for proper use of funds.
  - throwawayboise 6y ago
    Unless you're talking about federal programs, the money is absolutely not made out of thin air. States and cities cannot print money, and most have mandatory balanced budget laws.
- ska 6y ago
  > It's not illogical to prefer giving food and housing to cash. It's not inherently logical either. Your assertion that indirect funding is somehow more effective is unproven. If you want to be strictly logical about it, you decide up front what the actual goals are, and you try and find the most cost effective way to reach them. It may be counterintuitive, but it's entirely plausible that on the whole direct funding is more effective. There is at least some good evidence pointing this way in some areas. If you dig into any of this stuff in any real depth, you'll find that the "common sense" solutions are often wrongheaded for non obvious ways. Further: breaking the world into "normal folks" and "homeless people incapable of managing their finances" is far too reductive. There certainly are people whose addictions or mental health issues or whatever make it difficult for them to manage their own finances, but that is a small fraction of the people who rely on some sort of public assistance.

mminer237 6y ago

This is on top of already existing systems though. I don't think many people ever doubted that giving everyone an extra $12k per year or whatever made out of thin air would help some people, but in real life, the money has to come from somewhere. Plenty of people don't want to pay the increase in taxes that would be necessary to help the homeless publicly like that. Many people believe that more targeted spending is a more efficient and possibly a more effective way to help the homeless. Converting current public aid to just cash payments would probably be less effective. It's not illogical to prefer giving food and housing to cash. Somewhere around a third of homeless people are addicted to drugs or alcohol. Many have mental problems or just very bad financial skills. Many don't have a way to keep that money safe. If you give homeless people money, there's a very good chance it'll be blown on drugs, booze, or lotto tickets or just stolen. Some people it will help; some it won't. Whereas if you take that same increase in funding proposed and instead, say, expand housing programs, fund food banks, or provide mental health treatment, you know all that money is going to help people. Plus it can help people in ways that they may not help themselves otherwise.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> I don't think many people ever doubted that giving everyone an extra $12k per year or whatever made out of thin air would help some people, but in real life, the money has to come from somewhere. No, in real life money (especially in a country whose debt is denominated in currency it controls) is, almost literally, just made out of thin air. There are consequences of having more money around, and sometimes it is useful to destroy some money in a different distribution to offset some of the effects of creating money that was created and distributed a particular way, but that's a different issue. (This is the relatively uncontroversial part of Modern Monetary Theory; the controversial part is the follow-up “...and, therefore, we she engage in deficit spending a lot more freely than we do now.” The myth of the fisc (a metaphor held over from commodity money times when it was a decent repres5 of reality) is that money has to come from somewhere. > Plenty of people don't want to pay the increase in taxes that would be necessary to help the homeless publicly like that. The idea that taxes are necessary to pay for spending is the myth of the fisc. It's true only to the extent that the government decides it should be true. (Which, as much as people in government talk about it when opposing spending they don't like or promoting tax increases they do like, isn't all that much, hence the absence of anything approximating long-term fiscal balance.) > Whereas if you take that same increase in funding proposed and instead, say, expand housing programs, fund food banks, or provide mental health treatment, you know all that money is going to help people. No, you don't; waste, fraud, and abuse in selectively targeted government programs is a very, very real thing, and a lot of the money that doesn't go into waste, fraud, and abuse goes into control measures to prevent waste, fraud, and abuse, instead of to the actual program purpose. Source: more than 20 years in public sector work, the part of it that wasn't in IT specifically in fiscal management aimed at accounting for proper use of funds.
- throwawayboise 6y ago
  Unless you're talking about federal programs, the money is absolutely not made out of thin air. States and cities cannot print money, and most have mandatory balanced budget laws.
ska 6y ago
> It's not illogical to prefer giving food and housing to cash. It's not inherently logical either. Your assertion that indirect funding is somehow more effective is unproven. If you want to be strictly logical about it, you decide up front what the actual goals are, and you try and find the most cost effective way to reach them. It may be counterintuitive, but it's entirely plausible that on the whole direct funding is more effective. There is at least some good evidence pointing this way in some areas. If you dig into any of this stuff in any real depth, you'll find that the "common sense" solutions are often wrongheaded for non obvious ways. Further: breaking the world into "normal folks" and "homeless people incapable of managing their finances" is far too reductive. There certainly are people whose addictions or mental health issues or whatever make it difficult for them to manage their own finances, but that is a small fraction of the people who rely on some sort of public assistance.