NYC Poor to Get Cash for Good Behavior
I'm not quite sure what to make of this:
NEW YORK (AP) - Poor residents will be rewarded for good behavior - like $300 for doing well on school tests, $150 for holding a job and $200 for visiting the doctor - under an experimental anti-poverty program that city officials detailed Monday.
The rewards have been used in other countries, including Brazil and Mexico, and have drawn widespread praise for changing behavior among the poor. Mayor Michael Bloomberg traveled to Mexico this spring to study the healthy lifestyle payments, also known as conditional cash transfers.
In New York, the two-year pilot program with about 14,000 participants will use private funds Bloomberg has raised because he did not want to spend government money on something that is highly experimental. More than $43 million has been raised toward the $53 million goal, Deputy Mayor Linda Gibbs said.
On the one hand, I have to congratulate perpetual busybody Nurse Bloomberg for not spending government funds on this experiment. And as a big believer in the power of incentives to shape behavior, I think experimenting with changing incentives is probably worth a try.
What I'm not so sure about is whether cash rewards are the appropriate way to change incentives. Part of the problem with persistent poverty has to do with existing government programs that provide cash-equivalent support, and often provide disincentives to work, marriage, and other behaviors that would tend to lead people out of poverty. Personally, I'd rather see us strive to remove the government-provided disincentives to responsible and productive behavior, rather than attempting to use cash rewards to offset their impact, as I think the former would be considerably more effective.
Source: My Way News - NYC Poor to Get Cash for Good Behavior