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Do you really mean poverty, or other qualities that correlate with poverty? Do you think sufficiently high welfare payments would solve poor children's school p
by Lorento 12y ago
Do you really mean poverty, or other qualities that correlate with poverty? Do you think sufficiently high welfare payments would solve poor children's school problems? Somehow children in other countries seem to succeed very well despite even greater poverty than Americans.
I think there's a distinction between forced poverty and chosen poverty. Are the poor people you're talking about actively trying to become wealthier? If not, then poverty isn't the real problem.
- kaitai 12y agoActually, Yes! and it's been studied! A group of Cherokee Indians in North Carolina got some money from opening a casino. They decided to share profits, giving $6000 a year to each person in 2001 for instance. It's more or less a basic guaranteed income. So what happened to these people who'd lived in poverty before and now got a bit more money? Children who were moved out of poverty saw behavioral problems declined 40%, crime declined, and high school graduation rates increased. Like magic! See [1] for more. Main takeaway -- money increased parenting quality; parenting is key to success. Money can solve a lot of problems. Do you know how regular people try to actively become wealthier? They work more hours a week at minimum-wage jobs (ok -- add a second 20-hr/week part time job to your 40 hrs and you make less than 550 extra a month after taxes, and you are working 60 hrs/week so can't care for your own children that well). Or they become real-estate agents. That's a waste of time. If actively becoming wealthier were so easy these scrappy hard-working people would have done it. [1] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2891175/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2891175/