Paying the Poor
March 30th, 2007
Mayor Michael Bloomberg has finally begun making good on his promises to institute programs to fight poverty in the city, announcing a plan to give poor people financial incentives for getting their kids to school, having kids who do well on standardized tests and going to the doctor.
The idea delighted Brown Dog Democrats, which cheered, “”More mayors need to do things like this.” And Gina Cobb writes, “This program does have the virtue of offering a new approach to the problem of generational poverty. If what we are doing isn’t working, trying fresh solutions makes sense.”
But while many others applauded the mayor for doing something about the appalling levels of poverty in the city they questioned this approach.
Quoted on New York City Hunger Blog, Joel Berg, of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, said in its initial stages, the program would reach only 2,500 people or “less than two-tenths of one percent of the 1.7 million New Yorkers in poverty. We also need far bolder efforts to create large numbers of living wage jobs and make food, health care, housing, and child care, more affordable for low-income New Yorkers.”
Tina K. Russell thinks the mayor has taken a bad idea and made it worse: “As if bribing teachers to improve their students’ test scores wasn’t bad enough, now we’re bribing parents.” In general, she writes, “it seems to me like a very cynical and very hurtful idea that poor people don’t care about their children’s survival already. Offering incentives so as long as your children are successful is kind of like offering an incentive to eat food; you want to do it, but if you lack the means than no incentive is going to help.”
Unicorn Hat agrees, noting that the income of people eligible for this program is so low — no more than $20,000 for a family of three – that it may be next to impossible for them to do the things they need to do to get the cash incentives “Do you think the reason people aren’t making routine medical checkups, or parent teacher conferences are because they don’t want to?” the blog asks.
Intellectual Arbitrage also dislikes what it calls an “extortionist program,” though for very different reasons: “Why the hell should I give money to the poor for doing something that directly and immediately benefits them? Why the hell should I pay some random person because they went to the doctor when they were sick?”
And to New York Magazine’s Intelligencer the mayor’s program harks back to the days of Henry Ford whose Sociological Department would determine if employees’ personal lives and personal habits made them eligible for the full wage. In a similar may, the magazine says Bloomberg is “going to itemize instances of good behavior, price them out accordingly, and tabulate the winnings every two months. A kid’s exemplary attendance in elementary school may net the parent $25. Should she ace a test, there’s $300 in it for mom and dad. Presumably, the city dispatches a trained social worker to pat you on the head if you say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’”
By Gail Robinson on March 30, 2007, 2:44 pmIn category: Gotham City, Social Services
Recommend this entry via: stumble upon | digg | del.icio.us | 1 Comment »






