Cash alone proves inadequate to solve the problems of the poor | Hacker News Reader

Cash alone proves inadequate to solve the problems of the poor

washingtonpost.com

7 pointspetethomas13 comments

>If people are stuck in bad neighborhoods or bad jobs because they can’t save up enough for an apartment deposit or a better vehicle,

One flaw with this is rents are turning into a money sink. Until the housing crisis is solved, you can assume apartments/houses do not exist.

How to fix, build lots of housing, and I mean a lot. Like in a city like New York, build large apartments for like 2 million people.

Why would paying off medical debt help any of them? They already received the service, it can't be repossessed. It's not as if their medical credit was maxxed out and until it was paid down they couldn't do another ER visit. Paying medical debt only helps the creditors, whoever they are. Similarly, if you're paying cash towards people's rent deposits, it's more like welfare for the landlords. Especially if a financial hiccup will have them evicted again in a few months.

> It treats people with money problems as fellow citizens rather than science projects. It empowers them to make their own decisions.

Maybe they are in trouble because they make poor decisions.

The article takes as basic measurement the savings of said poor people. I might be wrong but I imagine when you barely afford proper housing and food you don't really think about saving, so the article is like blaming people why they don't eat cake. Even the counting of their worked hours: of course they work less, going down from three jobs to only two is a significant decrease in working hours. My point is, none of those measures were something to drag them out from the level they were in, so I see no reason why they should have changed their habits. A one-time payment gives you the opportunity to fix your car, that's all. And of course what you said, forgiving debt isn't doing much for the person in debt (unless the debt is against mafia, then very much yes).

Your last phrase irked me quite to the point of ignoring the rest. While there are of course poor decision makers among poor, I believe just blaming them does zero helping the society - and I hope for a society where I can walk on the streets without being attacked by starving "poor decision makers". And no, living between barbed wire walls is not a future I like either.

People need medical care more than once in their life. A great many medical care providers won't continue to treat patients who don't pay their bills [ER visits are an exception--but that is very high priced care and patients should be encouraged to use cheaper alternatives].

I'll refer you to my original comment, which said this:

>> Why would paying off medical debt help any of them? They already received the service, it can't be repossessed. It's not as if their medical credit was maxxed out and until it was paid down they couldn't do another ER visit.

> A great many medical care providers won't continue to treat patients who don't pay their bills

For the people we're talking about, they won't treat them at all without some proof that they're able to pay, and in some cases, payment up front. Paying down bills won't get these people further medical treatment. It's like you're confused, but I'm having difficulty figuring out where.

From the article they seemed to try three things, giving them $2000 cash, giving them $1000 a month, and debt forgiveness.

Consider the scenario where somebody's car is busted (needs replaced) and they have awful credit. They need a new car to get regular income. Any of those three options is unlikely to help them get a new car.

I am not arguing for cash handouts IN ANY WAY, but high quality used cars can very, very cheap.

Have you tried recently? A Japanese car with no collisions and around 100k miles is probably going to run you about 10k or more. You can obviously get more questionable used cars for a lot cheaper, but you'll very likely end up paying for that decision in the long run.

The lack of funds is typically a symptom of one or more underlying issues and not the root cause of being poor. How would throwing money at a symptom solve the problem?

That's reductive. Consider this scenario: somebody gets depressed and is out of work for several years. They burn through their savings and trash their credit rating. During this time, deferred maintenance ruins their car and their health. Eventually they realize they're on a short path to death so they start grasping for whatever chance they have. But now they can't work because they lack reliable transportation and have untreated health issues. If they can get enough cash to buy their way out of those problems, they have a relatively straightforward, albeit difficult, path to recovery. If they can't, they're trapped in a death spiral and will very likely sink back into their now terminal depression.

But to buy your way out of these problems will probably cost a lot more than the experiments the article cites. Like 10x more at least. Try it with 20k instead of 2k and I bet the outcomes will be much better.

And of course, for some people that money will hurt more than it helps. It will only help if the recipient is in the right mental space to make a serious go at turning their life around. Otherwise you'll just be enabling their self destruction. I don't have the answers for how such a program could be successfully run.

Wouldn't we all love an extra $20K! In your scenario the cycle will likely repeat no matter how much money is injected into their life, and then what, throw another $20K at them? I've sadly had to watch this happen a few times with family and friends and the truth is they can not be helped until they stop externalizing their problems and take ownership. It's an ugly truth that makes me uncomfortable writing because there's a fair bit of suffering on that path.

> In your scenario the cycle will likely repeat no matter how much money is injected into their life,

That's just your conjecture. Monetary help given at the right time can and often does break the cycle. The easiest way for this to happen is by the troubled person getting help from their family or friends. For instance, they may be lent a car and given a place to stay so they can save money without paying rent. Friends or family are in a good position to judge when somebody is serious and ready change their life for the better, or will just continue the cycle. They can and should withhold help until that person is ready.

For a government program to be as effective is dubious because it lacks that effective feedback mechanism. As I said, I don't pretend to know how such a program could be effectively run. I am only responding to the premise that money (or equivalent, such as lent vehicles) can't actually be the missing link that allows people to put their lives back together. People who have access to such support frequently do success, while those who don't usually won't.

the problem is that while productivity has gone up multiple times over in the past few decades, the purchasing power of the median wage has gone DOWN. Where is all that excess productivity going?

No one wants to work anymore, which I suppose explains why we're seeing mass layoffs every few weeks?

The problems of the poor are caused by the mass demoralization campaign spearheaded by sociopath billionaires who will not be stopped, as they control not only our social power structure but the media that declares what the public sentiment on the matter is.

Extremely competent, well educated individuals have already attempted every "non-radical" solution to this problem, and it has only gotten worse. What are we to do?

And for anyone who wants to tell me "it's okay because now you can afford a supercomputer in your pocket that would have cost a billion dollars in the 90's!", I would like to make it crystal clear that I would prefer food and shelter to an iPhone.

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