[BICN – Jenna van Draanen – June 2013]
Kenny writes an article for Bloomberg Business Week that challenges prevalent attitudes about alleviating poverty with cash transfers. He cites two particular studies that involved grants given to people living in Uganda and also gives examples from the United States.
Kenny discusses the US 1970s negative income tax experiments that guaranteed an income to thousands of low-income recipients and cites outcomes of improved test scores and school attendance for the children of recipients, reduced prevalence of low-birth-weight infants, and increased home ownership.
He argues that many studies of cash transfers in both developed and developing countries have led to a variety of impacts and that these studies have shown that impacts are not correlated with any conditions applied. He also argues for the cost-efficacy of administering such unconditional programs. The author is critical of the argument that poverty is a result of moral failings of the poor and believes this is a justification for taking a paternalistic approach to poverty relief.
Charles Kenny “For Fighting Poverty, Cash Is Surprisingly Effective,” Bloomberg Business Week. June 3, 2013. The original article can be found here: https://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-06-03/for-fighting-poverty-cash-is-surprisingly-effective#r=rss
