All eyes should be on the guy in Argentina to see if he can bring down their soaring debt he’s slashing spending and raising taxes.
129 billion in one month. That used to be annual deficits.
So your claim is that it failed because there were too many rules attached to the free money, not because,as I submit, they were irresponsible.
BUT if they applied to the program and accepted the money knowing what the rules were, but did not follow them, does that not make them irresponsible?
So my point is valid.
Thanx for providing proof.
It isn’t the taxes, it is the spending. And debt adds spending pressure, in the form of debt service. The issue is based on adults making spending decisions with the publics money that closely resembles a 15 year old with the parent’s credit card and no real supervision.
Ok…I searched under the criteria that was posted…I saw references to that, but that looked different to what was posted.
Thanks…
UBI Programs work.
Among the key findings outlined in a 25-page white paper are that the unconditional cash reduced the month-to-month income fluctuations that households face, increased recipients’ full-time employment by 12 percentage points and decreased their measurable feelings of anxiety and depression, compared with their control-group counterparts.
The study also found that by alleviating financial hardship, the guaranteed income created “new opportunities for self-determination, choice, goal-setting, and risk-taking.” It furthered recipients’ ability to cover unexpected expenses, which researchers noted was particularly important given the onset of the pandemic.
Individuals spent most of the money on basic needs, including food, merchandise, utilities and auto costs, with less than 1% going toward alcohol and/or tobacco.
“Before SEED came along, I was paying a lot of bills and didn’t know how I was gonna eat,” a participant named Laura said in a testimonial. “It’s like being able to breathe.”
The study also noted that positive effects of the $500 sum rippled outward in ways that “alleviated financial strain across fragile networks and generated more time for relationships.” For instance, stabilizing food security for members of one household also alleviated any strain on those they ordinarily relied upon for food.
Until the added income inflates prices and the program runs out of money, just as all redistributive programs do.
Truth lies somewhere in the middle.
The supposed “stringent requirements” that nixed it for most applicants was that this was not a money-for-nothing effort. The money was to help you do what you needed to do to get out of the vortex you were in. For instance, get training to get a job. Change spending habits.
It was limited to applicants from Chicago who were in public housing.
From a Chicago Trib article written after the program was suspended:
“At its most basic, the lesson of Families for a Better Life may be that the lives of the poor are so chaotic and infused with a “mind frame of entitlement” that they defy even programs specifically designed to overcome these obstacles.”
…Even candidates chosen for their drive struggled with attitudes that caused them to focus on issues that had little impact on their lives.
“It was difficult for them to come to grips with important things in their lives and continue on that course,” said Gordon Johnson, president of Hull House.
When the program was initially announced, tens of thousands of people called in. Only 1600 of them actually returned their applications.
Here are the stringent requirements:
Anyone interested in pursuing the program had to be poor, live in public housing, be willing to submit to drug tests and criminal background checks and to take part in whatever services the agency deemed appropriate.
Of the applicants, the board identified 19 initial families that seemed to have attitudes that could make this work… They were called in to meet with the administrators, and workers visited their homes. That list was narrowed to 7 families.
Those families then did an 8-week training on personal development. Two families dropped out.
From the program:
For an additional six months, they worked on practical aspects of achieving their goals by hunting for jobs, looking for new housing, learning how to manage money and finding child care.
By this spring, the five families were on their own.
One woman, in particular, stands out as a success story. When she entered the program, she had a part-time clerical job at a college where she also took classes.
Now, she works full time as an administrator for a health company and is buying a house through Habitat for Humanity.
The one participant who did not have a high school diploma or General Equivalency Diploma had great trouble finding work. Four months after the agency helped her get a job as a receptionist, she was laid off. She eventually found a job as a telemarketer but recently failed her GED exam.
Hull House officials say they now would require all participants to have high school diplomas or equivalency degrees.
The program spent almost $200K per family.
So this wasn’t just a give-them-a-million program. And the measurable success occurred with very carefully selected subject families. Most families were not selected because they simply wanted a give-me-money program. “Stringent requirements” were that you had to have the right attitude, and hundreds (out of the 1600 applicants) could not meet the requirements. A major take-away from the program, as noted above, is that “the lives of the poor are so chaotic and infused with a “mind frame of entitlement” that they defy even programs specifically designed to overcome these obstacles.”
1 Like
Thank you very very very much for doing the leg work my lazy butt didn’t want to do 
Yes as @Guvnah pointed out in his detailed post the truth lies somewhere in the middle.
But it wasn’t a million dollars and then they all wound up poor. That specific thing never actually happened. But anyway
A lot of what I posted leaned more toward your understanding of the program. But know also that only a very limited number of families ever got selected for the program because most would have ended up with results like @Zippy is suggesting.
And it’s not just a phenomenon limited to poor people. Look at how many articles are out there about lottery winners who blew it all and are out of money now.
Heck, I saw it from kids in my college days whose rich parents just paid for everything. (Not all of them of course, but plenty.) They frittered away their education opportunities, some flunked out, many got in trouble with the school for damages or mischief (and daddy threw money at it to make the problem go away…) They didn’t have to work for it. They had no rerspect for their opportunities.
The original point was this. And it’s quite often the way it goes:
2 Likes
That’s very fair.
I got caught up in tit for tat
Then I concede the amount.
And perhaps “poor” was a poor description. I mean right back where they were before they were given the money.
1 Like
