Do we hate the poor? - Jadyn Cleary

The NPR article “Researchers Find A Remarkable Ripple Effect When You Give Cash To Poor Families” speaks about an experiment done in various African countries to study the effects of cash infusions in impoverished areas. Previous studies have shown that cash infusions help those who they are given to, but little to no research has been done on the effects cash infusions have on those who do not receive them. The economist, Edward Miguel, partnered with the cash infusion charity, GiveDriectly, to research the outcome the infusions have on people in the area where they were given. Before this study, there was a lot of speculation that cash infusions would lead to inflation and harm those who did not receive the money. Miguel’s study showed that this was not the case, and the infusions were beneficial to everyone. Those who were given the money would inject it back into the economy where it could help many more people. 
  This article reminded me of a documentary we watched in IHSS years ago that followed three college students who went to live in a rural area in Africa on only 1 dollar a day. They mentioned a loan company like GiveDirectly, which would give loans to low-income families. The documentary showed how the families would use the loans to either educate their children, repair their house, or start a business. This documentary, and Miguel’s study, showed that giving cash to the poor was beneficial; so why is it not something we do more?
  I think that many people have a certain bias towards poor people, especially in America. The “pull yourself up by the bootstraps” mentality is very prominent here. Therefore, many people think that if you are poor, you either put yourself in that situation or you are not working hard enough to get out of it. This leads to distrusting the poor to make good financial decisions. This is why many people assume that all money given to the poor will be wasted on things like alcohol, drugs, or gambling, even though studies prove otherwise. I implore everyone to listen to this podcast that speaks more on the topic. 
Works Cited
Aizenman, Nurith. “Researchers Find A Remarkable Ripple Effect When You Give Cash To Poor Families.” NPR, NPR, 2 Dec. 2019, www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2019/12/02/781152563/researchers-find-a-remarkable-ripple-effect-when-you-give-cash-to-poor-families.
“Why Americans Hate The Poor (with David Wong & John Cheese).” ART19, Cracked, 11 Mar. 2018, art19.com/shows/the-cracked-podcast/episodes/ca548afe-c74c-4d5a-88dc-bffd3d4253aa.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Future of Work - Connor Morley

Image
The future of work in America is, like any prediction, ultimately uncertain, but there are numerous factors that are contributing to what can be predicted. Through the careful gathering of data by the McKinsey global institute, it is plain to see what jobs/lines of work are likely set to thrive and which ones might be in danger. It seems to be the trend that the jobs most in danger of displacement are the ones that are on the lower end of the pay scale. This appears to be correlated highly with jobs whose workers do not possess college degrees, as evidenced by this graph: Which shows that college degrees are more important than ever in a global economy less willing to shell out the big bucks on manufacturing and blue-collar work than ever, even though they constitute the largest portion of jobs in the world relative to other occupations, which really illustrates certain inequalities brought-on by a country exemplifying a capitalist model, such as the United States.  ...
Read more

Hey Check This Out 12/11

 https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/11/republicans-discover-dangers-selling-bunk-their-constituents/617197/ This article from The Atlantic draws the parallels between the lead up to, and the aftermath of the 1860 and the 2020 US presidential elections.  The divisions between modern day Americans and the two political parties are similarly as divided as back in the 1850’s leading up to the election of 1860 in which Abraham Lincoln (a Republican) was elected, much to the outrage of the US South; As described in the article the fiery speeches in the US Congress and toxic political rhetoric and conspiracy theories that were prevalent in the lead up to the 1860 election, which can also be said about the harsh divisions in the current 2020 political climate. In some ways, electing Obama president in 2008 helped improve race relations on some levels, or at least it opened up more dialogue about several important topics that had been ignored or downplayed for too long; i...
Read more

Coronavirus and issues of Development and Power

Jorge Larach 5/20/20 GPHC Coronavirus and issues of Development and Power  I read two articles:  Why Rich Countries must Protect Developing Nations from Coronavirus Pandemic How is the United Nations responding to the Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) / COVID-19 outbreak? Despite this assignment being due weeks ago, I still compared what these articles are talking about to today and processed the timeline provided in the second article (chronologically), as well as considered what the call to action of the first article was referring to. I think the first article provides a persuasive, fact-supported argument as to why higher-income countries should divert some of their attention to poorer countries, not just for the well being of those countries, but for theirs as well. It argues that if poorer countries are not given the support they need, monetary or otherwise, then not only will those countries be hit substantially harder than richer ones, but it will like...
Read more