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NEW YORK (AP) - Poor New York City residents will be rewarded for good behaviour - like US$300 for doing well on school tests, $150 for holding a job and $200 for visiting the doctor - under an experimental anti-poverty program city officials detailed Monday.

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Uh, on second thought, I saw the word patronizing, That must mean this is a femminist issue.

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Originally posted by dackle:
I thought poverty was one of those root causes that always needed fixing?

Uh, on second thought, I saw the word patronizing, That must mean this is a femminist issue.

I'll just listen.

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Originally posted by FabFabian:
Yeah, cuz people with money don't commit crimes. Yes this is 31 flavours of patronizing, insulting, degrading, etc.

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I read the whole article and saw no mention of criminals or crime.

[ 19 June 2007: Message edited by: Michelle ]

Do people who are unemployed and can't find work get anything, or is it a case of "to he who hath, more shall be given," and only those who are employed will get extra money as a reward for being employed?

Finally: let me guess - a Democrat came up with this. Am I right? Well, I was close. He's a lifelong Democrat who ran for mayor on a Republican ticket.

[ 19 June 2007: Message edited by: Michelle ]

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Originally posted by Michelle:
Finally: let me guess - a Democrat came up with this. Am I right?

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"Oh sure, once I was young and impulsive,
I wore every conceivable pin.
Even went to Socialist meetings,
Learned all the old union hymns.
Ah, but I've grown older and wiser
And that's why I'm turning you in...
So Love Me, Love Me, Love Me, I'm A Liberal!"

Why this is getting attention seems because the programme is rarely used in North America, or western Europe.

Anything which gives more money to poor people gets my support. Also often it encourages more people to be good parents, and, rich or poor, we need more of those.

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Originally posted by Banjo:
Why this is getting attention seems because the programme is rarely used in North America, or western Europe.

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Except for welfare parents, when they try to take their kids off Ritalin.

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Anything which gives more money to poor people gets my support. Also often it encourages more people to be good parents, and, rich or poor, we need more of those.

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Originally posted by Banjo:
What's this about ritalin? I can't see anything about in the article sited above.

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"It just reinforces the impression that if everybody would just work hard enough and change their personal behaviour we could solve poverty in this country and that's not reflected in the facts," said Margy Waller, co-founder of Inclusion, a research and policy group in Washington.

Waller, who served as a domestic policy adviser in former president Bill Clinton's administration, said it would be more effective to focus on labour issues, such as making sure wage laws are enforced and improving benefits for working people.

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Where I think a program like this could go well for the politicians, is that people actually relate to getting bits of money. Who isn't happy to get $25 or $100 here and there? It makes a neat little story, in a way that structural reform doesn't. The Left needs to rediscover the power of narrative, and not just talk in statistics.

Edited to add: I want to qualify what I said above. Structural or other kinds of reform from above, directed by technocrats, wonks, and people immmersed in legalese, make for non-stories. Popular mass movements, with millions of people participating and making history create millions of stories.

I started making a list but it started to go on and on. Plus that is a major thread drift...

[ 20 June 2007: Message edited by: blake 3:17 ]

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Originally posted by Banjo:
Perhaps not really off topic. Your post does raise the point that this is a method of social control.

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What chance does a poor kid have of getting an alternative sort of therapy to ADHD? What chance does a poor parent have of fighting a misdiagnosis of ADHD?

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Originally posted by Michelle:
I'm going to bet that poor children are much more likely to be the victims of misdiagnoses of ailments such as ADHD than the children of better off parents.

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Poor New York City residents will be rewarded for good behaviour - like US$300 for doing well on school tests, $150 for holding a job and $200 for visiting the doctor - under an experimental anti-poverty program city officials detailed Monday.

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SHytie!!! With the vast urban poverty in New York, if everybody takes advantage of this they could break the treasury!

OK, maybe not (especially since it’s being piloted via donated funds, not public bucks—but that’s never stopped the Republicans from lying).

The program may be laudable effort that might, as the article claims, be successful in cities in Brazil and Mexico. But as usual, Bloomberg, a super-rich brat who literally bought the New York City election, falls flat on his face in the long run.

For example, he’s raised $43 million of the $53 million he needs to do the test run on the this project that will involve 14,000 people and last only the summer.

How is the effectiveness of this test run going to be measured? The article doesn’t say. Paying someone $200 to go for a medical check-up that they might otherwise not be able to afford is fine. But what happens if the check-up reveals a medical condition that needs to be treated? Someone who can’t afford to pay for a doctor’s visit obviously isn’t going to be able to pay for medical treatment or drugs, are they?

Pay someone $150 to keep a job! How the hell do you measure that? How long does someone have to keep a job before they qualify? How about people who repeatedly change jobs, or take more than one job in order to survive (which is very common at the lower end of the income scale). Do they get $150 for each job? Most importantly, if a job is so lousy that the workers is forced to quit, or the worker has health, substance abuse or mental conditions that force him/her to quit, whether or not they get $150 isn’t going to matter much. It would mean a lot more to someone who can’t find a job or can’t work due to a disability to get $150.