Hank Kalet

This is a fascinating story on a study in Mexico that offers some evidence that distributing cash, rather than vouchers or food, does a better job of assisting the poor.

As the story makes clear, this is just one story and one study and drawing broad conclusions doesn’t make a lot of sense. But what the study does is “it adds to a growing pool of evidence that cash transfers actually aren’t ‘wasted’ on frivolous things and do improve poor peoples’ lives in observable ways.”

Studies like these are important, therefore, because they have the potential to move us away from a system of welfare (I use the term to describe the broad set of programs that include general assistance, food aid, housing, etc) constructed on a punitive, behavioral model toward one in which we acknowledge that assistance is needed and that it is in the best interests of both those being helped and the larger society to help without strings.

Let people who are receiving the aid make their own decisions about what to do with it. Let them set their own priorities.

Will they all make smart decisions all of the time? No. None of us do, and it does not stop us from receiving various forms of government aid, whether in the form of mortgage deductions and various tax right offs or direct outlays. No one checks to see that we have used the money in a “morally acceptable” manner. We just take the money and do what we want with it. Why should the poor be treated any differently?

Yes, some are going to buy drugs or drink, but many — maybe most — will use the money to keep their heads above water, making choices based upon what is required of them at the moment.

That’s how the rest of us live. We take our paychecks and the other money that comes in, and we balance the various interests in our lives. When money is tight, we might opt to cut back on food to make sure the rent is paid, or to keep the lights on. Or we might buy a six pack and watch baseball or buy porn or go out carousing.

The poor, however, are not afforded that leeway simply because they are poor. We have decided that they are morally or intellectually inferior, so we treat them as 10-year-olds, attaching strings to every bit of help we offer. It is worse in some states than others, though, even in relatively generous states, the application processes for receiving assistance is long and complicated and designed to intimidate. (Read both Jonathan Kozol and Michael Harrington on this.)

There is no evidence that our paternalistic approach to aid is more efficient or more effective than a more generous and open approach. But there are few efforts — and fewer studies of these efforts — being made to explore alternatives aside from finding new hoops for the poor to jump through as they attempt to get help.

It is part of a larger cultural/social mindset that assumes that the poor lack value, that their lack of resources somehow is evidence of a lack of humanity on their part, which then allows us to treat them like they were less than human. Isn’t it time this changed?

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This about sums up how the Supreme Court views the world:

Protest is fine when the rabble are the target, but not quite so fine when the men (and women) in robes are on the receiving end.

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This is a sad story — and far more typical than care to admit: Melvin Jenkins was a diesel mechanic who badly injured himself on the job, found himself in thrall to drugs and living on the streets. He died earlier this month at age 58 of a heart attack after seemingly cleaning himself up.

Some might look at Jenkins and blame him for his failings. They’ll say he could have cleaned himself up sooner, that he should have resisted the demon of drug and alcohol abuse, that he had a skill and he should have used it and remained productive. There is some truth to these claims. That Jenkins failed to stay clean and productive is mostly his fault, though he probably had an assist from a society that has little patience for those battling substance abuse and mental health issues.

Even if we accept that his failings were his own, doesn’t the fact that Jenkins is just one of hundreds of thousands of homeless men and women in this country say something about the way we view productivity and usefulness, about how little we regard people living on the edge of the economy?

Lakewood is forcibly closing Tent City this week, which is part of an agreement between the township and the homeless that resulted in a year of housing for those in the camp last year. It is doing so in an aggressive manner that treats those remaining as animals — rooting them out and chasing them away, caring little about what happens to the last of them.

And, perhaps more importantly, no one has addressed the issues that resulted in the tent encampment sprouting in the woods along Cedar Bridge Avenue in the first place — the lack of quality affordable housing or even emergency shelter in the region in a region known for having a high cost of living, a lack of jobs that pay a living wage to the unskilled or moderately skilled, and a broader economic attitude that assigns value only to those who can help businesses create profits.

As my friend Ken Wolman points out on Facebook: “I’m sure that not so long ago, he didn’t think he’d become the Man On The Grate either. Avoiding that fate doesn’t require strength of character, just good fortune and being able to avoid painful injuries.”

It also may require a reconsideration on our part of how we value our fellow human beings.

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A federal judge overturned Indiana’s same-sex marriage ban yesterday, while an appeals court did the same in Utah today — part of a tidal wave of decisions that show that momentum is on the side of equality.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard L. Young ruled that there was little difference between a so-called gay marriage and a heterosexual one and that treating couples differently based on orientation was unconstitutional.

“It is clear that the fundamental right to marry shall not be deprived to some individuals based solely on the person they choose to love,” Young ruled. “In time, Americans will look at the marriage of couples such as Plaintiffs, and refer to it simply as a marriage – not a same-sex marriage. These couples, when gender and sexual orientation are taken away, are in all respects like the family down the street. The Constitution demands that we treat them as such.”

The decision follows rulings in other Republican-led states that have been hostile to gay rights and brings the number of states that have either legally enshrined marriage equality or had their bans overturned to — well, I’ve lost count. And that is the point. What started as a steady trickle of pro-equality rulings and votes in the wake of Prop. 8 in California, which was probably the last major victory for the so-called marriage-protection side, has turned into a full-on wave that has washed over not only blue states like New York and Massachusetts, but red states like Utah, Kentucky and, now, Indiana.

Does this mean the battle is won? No. But momentum is in the right direction.

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Two new pieces at NJ Spotlight — one on Superior Court Judge Mary Jacobson’s decision not to grant an injunction against a state move to withhold its pension payments as part of a budget-balancing measure and a profile, posted yesterday, on Bryan Miller of Heeding God’s Call.

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