Zhao says having data on how people who did get the money actually spent it is something she thinks will help counteract stereotypes, increase empathy and potentially get skeptics and the public on board with the idea of providing cash transfers.

Now that the study is complete, the plan is to replicate it and expand it to other cities in Canada and the U.S.

      • SheeEttin@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        That link argues against your claim.

        In general, most Americans ages 16 to 59 who aren’t disabled must register with their state SNAP agency or employment office; meet any work, job search or job training requirements set by their state; accept a suitable job if one is offered to them; and work at least 30 hours a week. Failure to comply with those rules can disqualify people from getting SNAP benefits.

        In addition, nondisabled adults without dependents must either work or participate in a work program for 80 hours a month, or participate in a state workfare program. If they fail to do so, they can only receive SNAP benefits for three months out of any 36-month period.

        • Strangle@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          We all know how this works out in reality. 40+ million people are on food stamps and the graduation rate is much lower than the 80-100% that everyone expects from programs like this

          • Neato@kbin.social
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            1 year ago

            We all know how this works out in reality.

            LOL. You present evidence, someone quickly reads the citation and shows you it proves the obvious. So you throw your own evidence under the bus for an “everyone knows” argument. How pathetically transparent.

            • Strangle@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              I’m not going to convince you that throwing money at things doesn’t solve any of the problems it promises to. That’s a journey you’ll make on your own as you grow up and start realizing this as you get into adulthood

      • Neato@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        Reagan’s racist ghost, is that you? I haven’t heard a good “welfare queens” argument in a while.

      • Hank@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        We have very few homeless people in Germany and we do have welfare. Where do you think the US failed?

      • dragonflyteaparty@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Huh, I looked through your article. It didn’t mention anything about people staying on food stamps in order to not work. Given that grocery costs have sky rocketed in recent years, I hardly think that the $300 some odd makes people want to not work, especially coupled with the fact that non-disabled people are required to take any reasonable job and work 30 hours a week. Interesting source for your comment.

        • mo_ztt ✅@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          I agree, and I would also add that depending on how it’s done, it can actually benefit the economy (“make people richer”) quite a lot. I thought about replying to them with this whole typed out explanation of how the social safety net of the New Deal, over the next few decades, transformed the US economy from one in which a handful of people kept all the money and everyone else was starving into a hugely more powerful economy where the people involved in running the whole operation were invested in the whole operation’s success and permitted to share (a little bit) in the fruits of that success. I’d call that, in the specific way that it was done, a pretty defining success that impacted the whole arc of the 20th century.

          Honestly the devil is in the details, and it’s also possible erect what was supposed to be a social safety net which actually makes things worse, and if someone wanted to make a coherent argument for why this or any other specific thing was an instance of that, I’d be fine to talk about that. But I’ve been progressively learning on Lemmy that when someone gives a one-sentence non sequitur partisan response, taking it at face value and trying to be detailed and factual in your response is a mug’s game. The number of people who would genuinely be interested in that conversation seems pretty upsettingly small.

          • carl_dungeon@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            I don’t disagree that building a system that creates dependence and de-incentivises personal responsibility and opportunity can be a bad thing, however, I do feel that raising the floor can only be a good thing. I read some study a few years ago about how simply providing childcare and healthcare for people in a bad situation immediately changes their entire situation- suddenly they can work a normal job, not pay out the ass for childcare, and begin to actually better their lives and start saving money. People can then begin to be real contributing members of the economy instead of being trapped in endless “never enough to pay the bills” cycles.

            A family member of mine had to quit a job because of harassment years ago and found herself ineligible for any kind of unemployment or welfare benefits because she received $50 a month in child support from an ex husband- the paltry amount of social service she would have received would have been just enough to pay rent and food for her two kids, but nope, that $50 meant she could get nothing. I can’t imagine how stressful that must have been trying to borrow money from family and wondering how she was going to eat and ever get a job to pay it back.

            It worked out in the end because family helped out, but what if she was like many and had no one to lean on like that? She could have been homeless.

            • mo_ztt ✅@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              Yes, agreed. The current system in the US is so far from economic justice that it’s hard to even talk about particular details of how to improve it, because the whole thing is such a gilded-age disaster.

              I sorta sympathize with this dude who’s railing against “welfare,” because there is a good point there. I don’t think the goal should be just giving money whenever they seem like they need it. However, your point is equally well-taken; if someone’s just fucked, then turning them out on the street maybe along with their family definitely isn’t the answer. I keep bringing up the New Deal because I feel like that’s pretty close to the answer. You can have a job if you want to work. The government is going to out-and-out create a whole bunch of jobs doing stuff that really badly needs doing, and if you want one of them, let’s fuckin’ get to work. Having a system where the majority of “jobs” are pretty low paying, miserable on a day to day level, and not doing much of anything for anybody involved, is the problem. Then on top of that, if something outside your control changes, you might get turned out on the street, or maybe we give you this minimal handout. Doing that handout seems, to me, better than not, but the problem goes a lot deeper.

              There’s a bunch of work to be done. We need to improve education in this country, we should be trying to mitigate the apocalyptic damage that climate change is going to cause, we badly need to fix the roads and bridges and electrical infrastructure, stuff like that. There’s no shortage of real problems to work on. The problem is that the system doesn’t do anything to match up the huge population that wants to have a worthwhile job, with the massive piles of resources (wages) our technological efficiency makes available, with the massive amount of work to be done. It seems like we want everyone to just keep going to their office admin or retail jobs or whatever making $11/hr until we all sink into the boiling sea.

      • dogslayeggs@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Since it allowed the single mom of a very close friend of mine to feed her kids, one of whom was able to study and get into college, who got a great job and is now rich.

      • bstix
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        1 year ago

        Since always. Teaching man to fish is cheaper than providing fish for him every day or whatever they say.