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I'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.

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't cause larger problems. I see that as the class of objections that these studies are looking to corroborate or refute.

Yes it's that second group I'm thinking of here. Show them that over an x amount of time period these programs resulted in Y and you might make more advances.

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, "Well, then you should let me distribute my money that way instead of taking it and doing it yourself."

>" Most staunch opponents of wealth redistribution oppose it on principle, not practical terms."

Please provide a citation for this claim, I have not seen any evidence either way.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_as_theft

The post to which I replied said "[m]ost staunch opponents", not 'some opponents'; I would like to know where the 'most' comes from.

So... what's your point? You seem to be making a semantic argument, to what end?

Sometimes there's not a germane statistic and you might just have to go off of your own lived experience.

>>> Most staunch opponents of wealth redistribution oppose it on principle, not practical terms.

Actually, most people don't like it because they've seen how the government "redistributes" their money and most of the time it's wasted.

This is why religious institutions tend to get so much in donations. People trust their church more than their government.

Define wasted. Was it burned? Unless you are talking about military expenditures, which have some of the lowest economic multipliers, it paid someone's salary, who in turn went and participated in the economy. Was it ideally spent? No, but read some Edward Denning: you can spend more money ensuring that only the right people get money or you can just wrote checks and accept statistical levels of error.

Uh, just Google: "Wasteful Government Spending" and you'll find a few gems like this:

http://www.policymic.com/articles/48003/14-ridiculous-ways-t...

"Gitmo detainees also have a soccer field funded by American taxpayers. Don't worry, it only cost $750,000 to build."

"The federal government pays pensions of deceased employees, costing $120 million. According to the Huffington Post: "One man, whose father died in 1971, continued to receive payments until 2008 when he himself died, costing the government $515,000, according to the report."

"According to Senator Coburn's 2012 "Wastebook," in 2009, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) implemented a plan "to improve the economic competitiveness of Morocco" costing $27 million"

"$516,000 of your money was spent to make a video game providing taxpayers with the opportunity to relive prom."

Arguably, still not actually wasted. Went back into the money supply, bought goods and services, contributed to the economy.

Seriously, unless you have truly minimal savings rate like the dirt poor, when you pay taxes you are doing one of two things: building infrastructure or boosting the economy. Surely your taxes COULD be better spent, some government expenditures have higher economic multipliers than others, but wasted? You don't understand economics.

> Well, then you should let me distribute my money that way instead of taking it and doing it yourself."

And AFAICT, the US tax code is at least half decent about recognizing charitable giving -- that is, letting people distribute their money that way or other ways -- as a legitimate offset to a personal tax burden.

Possible it could be better.

It looks to me like we don't see a lot of personal stipend style charitable giving, though.

(There's a significant presumption in the phrase "my money", but that conversation usually goes about as well as threading the proverbial camel through the eye of a needle, probably for much the same reasons.)

I'm always surprised people yell about the U.S. not wanting to help those in poverty. I think that's pretty well refuted by noting that the U.S. is #1 in charitable giving [1]. The bigger problem seems to be people trusting government imposed redistribution schemes rather than the rejection of them altogether.

[1]http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/19/world-giving-index-...

The are all sorts of ways to measure aid. Have a read of this if it interests you. I stumbled across it while looking to see if I could find a $ given per head of population graph I saw a while back. I didn't find it. http://kriswager.blogspot.co.nz/2007/03/is-usa-biggest-forei...

> I think that's pretty well refuted by noting that the U.S. is #1 in charitable giving [1]

After browsing the PDF, it seems to not account for many things. No idea why you think it is 'well refuted'. E.g. It does not account for higher taxes, which are funneled to help the poor. It also seems to count everything binary, either you helped or you did not. No mention is given as to how much time/money you actually donated - and to whom.

Additionally, weighing all three things (giving money/helping strangers/volunteering time) the same is rather odd. The us is #10 at giving money. And this does not even include taxes! Way to fight poverty.

If it weren't for the dubious 'helping a stranger' the US would not be anywhere.

The US is #1 in charitable giving because it's so easy to get a tax deduction for doing so. If people had to give out of their after-tax income I suspect you'd see a quite different picture.

That's a pretty cynical viewpoint & doesn't account for the fact that other countries do or may have similar type tax laws.

Can you provide some sort of proof of causation for your theory?

That's not true. I have the experiences of having prepared taxes professionally and counting and reporting donations at a church. By combining those I can observe that the majority of donations are proportional to income, not whether the donator can fill out a Schedule A. (The ability to fill out a Schedule A and deduct donations essentially depends on whether the taxpayer has a mortgage, for middle class.)

It's not exactly a tax deduction though... In the UK, for example, charitable donations are 'tax free' effectively, since the recipient will recieve an extra amount based on the marginal income tax rate you are paying. The only beneficiary here is the charity, and only if you make an explicit donation from your after-tax income. It's not like the government is allowing you to choose to redirect the tax you're due to charity. In the US, I believe the situation is similar.

It's different in the US:

'The taxable income of the donor is reduced by 300 USD. If the donor's income was in the 35% income tax bracket both before and after the deduction, the donor's tax liability (amount of taxes owed to the government) is reduced by 105 USD.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charitable_contribution_deducti...

In theory a donation of $1 in the US is exactly equivalent to a donation of $.70 or so in the UK. But psychologically it seems that people are much more willing to donate more and get money from the government.

(The other thing I've wondered about is how much of the US's charitable donations are simply tax fraud).

Except that the plurality of U.S. charity goes to religious charities.

Charitable giving for health, education, and human services accounts for only 33% of all charitable giving in the U.S. How much of that goes to programs designed to address poverty is debatable.

Source: http://www.alysterling.com/documents/GUSA2012ExecutiveSummar...

>>>>> xcept that the plurality of U.S. charity goes to religious charities.

Who actually do quite a bit of good with it:

"We should start by noting that Catholic charity work is extensive and widely considered a crucial part of the nation’s social safety net. By itself, Catholic Charities USA, has more than 2,500 local agencies that serve 10 million people annually, said Mary L. Gautier, a senior research associate at the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, an institute at Georgetown University that studies the church."

"Meanwhile, Catholic News Service has noted a few other Catholic organizations that made the Chronicle’s annual 400 list, including Father Flanagan Boys Home and Covenant House. This excludes Catholic universities, which mainly provide higher education; hospitals, which are categorized separately from social services; and groups that focus on overseas work."

source: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/mar/...

Considering they put out close to 4 billion every year in charity, it's hard to argue they don't help the impoverished.

That doesn't really refute my point at all. Catholic charities devoted to human services are counted under human services.

I'm not sure where I said religious charities don't help people. They most certainly help members of their respective congregations. But they also can do a lot of harm, like you know, oppressing people by opposing same sex marriage, or pretty much anyone who doesn't share their religious beliefs.

Since we're focusing on catholics, what good is done by denying all of your employee's spouses insurance coverage, just so you don't have to extend the benefit to people in same sex marriages? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03...

Wow - I don't even know where to start. . .

>>>>> They most certainly help members of their respective congregations.

You missed this part of the article:

"In 2010, Catholic Charities USA reported expenditures of between $4.2 billion and $4.4 billion, according to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, which publishes an annual list of the 400 biggest charities in the United States,"

I'm pretty sure NONE of that is going directly back to congregation members. It's charity, which means it's earmarked for other people who need it more than the church does. I spare you the biblical quotes, but that's why they do it, it's part of their religion and belief system.

>>> But they also can do a lot of harm, like you know, oppressing people by opposing same sex marriage, or pretty much anyone who doesn't share their religious beliefs.

>>> Since we're focusing on catholics, what good is done by denying all of your employee's spouses insurance coverage, just so you don't have to extend the benefit to people in same sex marriages? http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03....

Unreal.

I'm not going to take your bait troll, but nice try.

No I didn't miss that part. Like I said religious charities devoted to human services are counted towards human services in the source I posted. My source counts charities as religious if they identify their cause as being for "Religious Activities" or "Religous Media and Broadcasting"

I'm not trolling. I think religous charities do a lot of good, but I think they also can do a lot of harm. I think it's ridiculous to suggest that private charity will solve everything when the majority of that charity goes to religious Charities who have a track record of oppressing those with different beliefs.

Your not trolling but you have a fixation that religious organizations are bad and therefor anything they do must be discounted.

For what its worth, not supporting is not always the same as opposing. Religious charities have stepped in in many cases well before any government agency has and they usually offer their help without "clauses" and "rules" that come with other forms of assistance.

Did you read my post at all? I'm pretty explicitly not talking about all religious organizations, but rather religious charities, and like I already pointed out:

'My source counts charities as religious if they identify their cause as being for "Religious Activities" or "Religious Media and Broadcasting"' A small fraction of that would be the 400 million dollars spent lobbying by religious groups every year, you know lobbying to restrict women's rights and against same sex marriage.

10M annually, or 3.3% of the US population. Religious charities are great, but they're not a substitute for a national safety net.

I'm always surprised people yell about the U.S. not wanting to help those in poverty. I think that's pretty well refuted by noting that the U.S. is #1 in charitable giving.

Pah.

There's no way that you can assess a how well a society helps its poor simply by looking at one metric (like charitable giving) alone. It's just silly, on the face of it.

This is good evidence to support a guaranteed minimum income: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaranteed_minimum_income

Or a basic income: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basic_income

GMI is typically means-tested, which can mess up incentives.

And means testing adds to administrative overheads too.

True, but probably less than would be disbursed to those excluded by means testing. If it had no other downside, it might well be a good idea.

This is a nice theory, a narrative that might be difficult to prove in practice, however.

On a more meta-level, though, people's political opinions influence their interpretation of statistics, so even if you did prove this ROI, cognitive disonance will fight you extremely hardly. Instead of trying to convince people who are against any form of wealth distribution, it's 1% as difficult to convice the people on the fence (of whom there are also 10x more) , those who are ok with some distribution, that this is a pretty effective replacement/complement for current services.