
Poverty reduces brainpower needed for navigating other areas of life (2013) - known
https://www.princeton.edu/news/2013/08/29/poor-concentration-poverty-reduces-brainpower-needed-navigating-other-areas-life
======
cdoxsey
Poverty can also be a trap because the simple solution (just giving someone
money to alleviate poverty) isn't the same as earned success.

When you feel like you've earned money through hard work and you feel like
you're a contributor and needed and respected by your peers it brings a
significant amount of satisfaction and happiness in life, which in turn drives
you to be more productive and alters the way you think about your resources.

When you're given wealth, you don't feel like you've earned it, you have no
buy-in, and you feel like a burden to those around you. You can see the
difference starkly with those who earn wealth and those who inherit it. All to
often the next generation squanders it.

I think we should give money to those in need, in fact I think it's a moral
imperative. But I also think it's important to remember the more complex human
psychology behind the scenes. In addition to satisfying basic needs how can we
get this person a meaningful way to contribute and feel like they're earning
what they're given in the future. How can we plug them into a community that
can sustain them through tough times, and likewise that they can support?

Consider [http://streetsteam.org/model](http://streetsteam.org/model) which
supplies the homeless with work cleaning city streets:

> We believe that treating people with dignity and empowering them to be a
> part of the solution to their struggles is a major factor in their ultimate
> success.

~~~
jimnotgym
> Poverty can also be a trap because...

Actually there is contrary evidence. A study was carried out on the streets of
London where they gave larger sums of cash no-strings-attached, and it showed
that people in general took that money and used it to set themselves up in a
job. One started a gardening business, for instance [0]. The idea that work is
what people _need_ is very Victorian, and reminds me of the tread-mill in the
workhouse. Surely we should be looking for ways to remove the tyranny of
physical labour. I most certainly do not need to be working in a regular job
to feel successful.

On the matter of terminology _the poverty trap_ as I have seen it looks very
different. There is a trap that means in the UK if I am out of work I can get
_job-seekers allowance_ and _housing benefit_ and _child benefit_. If I can
find a single days work I lose all of it (although I may get some _working tax
credit_ it will not cover the loss), so anything other than a full time job
has to be avoided at all costs. That is the poverty trap, benefits systems
that penalise attempts to get off them.

[0] : [https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/providing-personalised-
support...](https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/providing-personalised-support-
rough-sleepers)

~~~
bequanna
> If I can find a single days work I lose all of it.

I can't speak to social programs outside of the US, but here, most of our
programs (SNAP, Section-8, unemployment benefits) are on a sliding scale. This
allows for benefits to somewhat decrease as earnings increase.

That said, I anecdotally have noticed a couple things:

1\. Many low income people actually aspire to be accepted into these programs,
especially Section-8 (US housing assistance).

2\. Once people are accepted into these programs, they never leave.

I own dozens of rental properties, some of them low income where we accept
tenants who receive housing assistance. I've never seen a singe person lose
this benefit or have it decreased because they start earning more.

Now, I'm not sure whether these programs are a trap or not. I think it is
waaay more complicated than that. Some people need help. Some people will
leverage this assistance to climb up or make it through a tough time. Some
people will take advantage.

~~~
zappo2938
I can recall two students I knew at Stuyvesant who lived in a couple of the
more violent public housing projects who went on to college. My anecdote
proves your anecdote wrong. That said I will need for you to come with studies
and real data that show you are not wrong. This is because what you are saying
has very real world implications that will hurt children who do need sometime
up to 18 years of housing assistance so that they can also go on to college
and become productive members of society.

~~~
bequanna
> This is because what you are saying has very real world implications that
> will hurt children who do need sometime up to 18 years of housing assistance
> so that they can also go on to college and become productive members of
> society.

What exactly am I saying?

------
JanisL
At one point in the past I was most definitely dealing with poverty and I
found it a lot more difficult to get development tasks done at work. The
reduced mental capacity is really noticeable but importantly it's also
temporary.

Since then I've kept an eye out for disadvantaged people who do good
development work. If they are able to produce things despite having a reduced
capacity it's such a good sign that they have real talent. Poverty can be
dealt with more easily than a lack of talent.

There's a great book called "scarcity" by by Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar
Shafir, that explains the mechanisms behind this, would highly recommend
reading it.

~~~
kranner
Mullainathan and Shafir are indeed co-authors on the study cited in this
article.

[http://science.sciencemag.org/content/341/6149/976](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/341/6149/976)

I also second the recommendation for 'Scarcity'.

------
simonsarris
"Poverty decreases IQ" studies are contentious and not well replicated. Why
does it keep getting repeated in 2018?

This Princeton article is from 2013 and talking about the paper, "Poverty
Impedes Cognitive Function". Here is some December 2013 commentary doubting
the paper:

> Mani et al. (Research Articles, 30 August, p. 976) presented laboratory
> experiments that aimed to show that poverty-related worries impede cognitive
> functioning. A reanalysis without dichotomization of income fails to
> corroborate their findings and highlights spurious interactions between
> income and experimental manipulation due to ceiling effects caused by short
> and easy tests. This suggests that effects of financial worries are not
> limited to the poor.

Comment on "Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function". Available from:
[https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259207757_Comment_o...](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/259207757_Comment_on_Poverty_Impedes_Cognitive_Function)

~~~
amelius
> "Poverty decreases IQ" studies are contentious and not well replicated. Why
> does it keep getting repeated in 2018?

The reason might be common sense. The evolution of the human brain was
possible for a great part because humans started to cook their food. Poverty
reduces nutritional intake. Therefore the studies make sense. This means that
(imho) somebody should prove the opposite to make this completely logical meme
go away.

~~~
dionidium
This isn't just wrong, it's _fundamentally_ wrong. The burden is on those who
wish to forward a positive claim. The meme won't go away because it nicely
confirms a popular and comforting narrative.

~~~
wwweston
What we're talking about here isn't "a popular and comforting narrative," it's
a description of a plausible model involving mechanisms that are at least
partially understood.

Once you're at that point, whether a challenge to that model or the model
itself constitutes a claim that bears the greater burden of proof isn't as
clear as it might be for any arbitrary claim.

------
jimnotgym
In his influential book on Universal Income, "Utopia for Realists", Rutger
Bregman discusses this at some length (referencing the same study).

I have to say I have experienced it myself, and not having enough money for
the essentials is so _all consuming_ that you cannot possibly perform well at
work and make good life decisions. I have succeeded at work under these
conditions, but I gave up everything else, hobbies, leisure time, and worse of
all time with my children. Maybe my kids will do worse in their exams because
I didn't have the mental capacity left to see where they needed help. Maybe
this will make them poorer too.

~~~
tsenkov
I am sure you have given your kids a great example of succeeding in a tough
situation and taking care of a family.

Edit: Don't know why was my post down-voted. My intention was only to give
emotional support to a fellow human being that goes/went through pain that I
personally have struggled with and know all too well.

~~~
jimnotgym
Thank you for that, it was a nice comment and I up-voted. It is interesting,
my eldest always seems to think we are poor now, since she was old enough to
have remembered the worst of it. I earn above average wage now, but she is
scarred by it. My reaction is not to victim-blame other poor people who didn't
get through, but to campaign for a system which helps people succeed. And that
system is not, categorically, anything with strings attached or any 'work-
makes-you-free' Victorian BS. Working out of poverty is miserable and I don't
feel a lot better for having done it, but I do bear plenty of scars.

------
maym86
All programmers here know how hard it is to get work done when you need to
focus and are in a disruptive environment. It's much harder to get work done
when you're dealing with a lot of overhead.

~~~
weddpros
This is my concern with the article: maybe the impairment doesn't necessarily
depend on scarcity/money... Maybe it's more a matter of bandwidth, in which
case blaming Poverty only sounds quite ideological.

1- Does the bandwidth problem go away when you fix poverty (costly but easy to
measure)?

2- Does the problem go away when you lessen perceived stress instead? (teach
meditation/auto-hypnosis and measure if it helps)

3- Solutions to this problem should have applications in the teaching world,
when exam-stress can reduce bandwidth, yet we can't just make exams easier

"It's much harder to get work done when you're dealing with a lot of
overhead": sometimes the opposite is true, like when you decide to burry
yourself with work to escape hardships... It's a matter of mind state, so
learning to control it should help.

~~~
maym86
"Learning to control it" ("it" being the stress of poverty) just sounds like
another overhead you are expecting people to deal with that people in a more
stable situation don't have to worry about.

~~~
weddpros
Stress of poverty is only one form of stress, of which there are many: I'm
almost 47, I've suffered poverty but also infidelity, a stroke, the loss of my
dad and rejection from family.

Maybe you think poverty is "easy to fix", with money... but you can choose to
take control of all forms of stress instead, and get prepared for worse than
poverty.

------
jernfrost
I think this is why social democracy works so well for reducing poverty. When
I compare poverty relief programs in the US with how it works in Scandinavian
countries (I live in Norway) I notice a very big difference in how it is
delivered.

The US uses a large patchwork of a multitude of smaller means tested programs.
You frequently read about how people are telling each other about what
programs one can apply to and how. In short becoming poor in the US means
navigating a maze of small programs and understanding and having the energy to
apply to all of these.

In a social democratic system most of these small means tested programs are
replaced by large non-means tested programs. They aren't really programs but
rather universal rights for everyone. There is much less to navigate.

1) Everybody gets heavily subsidized child care. There is nothing to apply
for. Which reduces the economic burden of having children.

2) Health care while pregnant or anything related to children is completely
free. For grownups you only pay small fees for doctors visits. You can't get
into financial ruin over cancer treatment e.g.

3) Once you pay above a certain level for medication you don't pay anymore.
There is a cost roof to the patient. Which prevents financial ruin due to
medication. There is nothing to apply for or be eligible for. It just kicks in
automatically.

4) If you are unemployed and struggle with getting a job, you get government
aid to retrain or get new skills. It is not means tested.

5) Education is free and you get very favorable loans and stipends, everybody
get the same regardless of income. It is only the conditions of the study
which affects it. E.g. if you live away from home you get more than if you
live at home. If you chose to study abroad you get more e.g. to cover tuition.
E.g. I studied in the US and the Norwegian government payed most of the
tuition. It means even if you are poor getting a decent education is not a
major obstacle. You don't have to hunt for scholarships and spend weeks
filling them out.

6) Sick pay and unemployment benefits are quite generous so you don't go to
economic ruin because you get sick or unemployed for a while.

Of course some people do fall between the cracks in social democracy as well.
But it takes a lot more effort to end up in poverty. More things need to go
wrong. Typically the ones who end up on the street are drug addicts and
alcoholics. But even most of them are offered accommodations.

However I still think universal basic income is worth exploring. Our system is
by no means perfect. A significant problem is that because the welfare
services are so generous, they are expensive and there is a lot of worry about
abuse, especially from foreigners who have a more cynical view towards welfare
programs because they have grown up in states where the common man in screwed
over in every possible way. Exploiting the system then does not seem unfair.
This lead to more monitoring and a harder push towards means testing and
requiring certain actions by the recipient. They are very pushy on unemployed
people e.g. They have to demonstrate that they are actively seeking work. If
you are sick for longer periods you need meetings with a medical professional
and the employer to come up with possible arrangements that could allow you to
function at work.

~~~
hueving
Norway is extremely wealthy though. Your benefits don't apply to citizens of
Greece or other countries in the EU so it's not clear that it's a scalable
solution.

The US is very large, comparing it to a single country in Europe makes little
sense. If you compare it to the EU itself you will see why there are so many
disparate systems throughout the country.

~~~
dd36
The US is more wealthy. Moreover, perhaps Norway is wealthier because of its
support systems.

~~~
cdoxsey
Norway is wealthy because of oil:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_N...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Pension_Fund_of_Norway)

~~~
dnh44
Lots of countries have abundant natural resources. Most of those resources are
exploited by private interests though.

------
dghughes
At the moment there is post at #1 about people's notions of an ideal life. It
seems to contrast with this article. People want a simple life with good
health not to acumulate stuff.

But really you have to think what is poverty? It's such a vague word as is the
word poor.

There are people who live a subsistence lifestyle and they're happy. But there
are people with mobile phones, big screen TV, computers, in an apartment who
are poor.

From my perspective we in a western society require more things to live too
many things. For example Internet access for basic government services, by
your employer and schools.

Wages haven't kept pace with life. Costs seems to be rising faster than the
lowest pay can cope with.

My father is from a generation where you work long hours to make more money,
simple as that. But these days the wage from any paying job may not be enough
even working overtime.

Even 20 years ago most people didn't have a cell phone, Internet was not
widespread, you weren't paying for Netflix or a dozen other things eating away
at your paycheque.

To me it seems technology plus stagnant low skill job wages have amplified
poverty.

------
galfarragem
Can't we derive this conclusion from Maslow's theory of needs? It's all there.

~~~
rando444
Scrolled down looking for this. My thoughts exactly.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs)

------
blablabla123
This is discriminating.

Articles with a similar sentiment have been posted here recently, authored by
people on the other end of the capital spectrum. So count in that bias.

One doesn't really need a study to show that accumulating more problems, one
needs more brain power to deal with that. In fact it's part of the collective
common sense things are like that.

I'd rather like to see articles that summarize hiring and admission biases
based on socio economic background. Especially also when it comes to
management positions, there the gap is even more extreme. Ironically people
there earn extra money, so they can buy the problems away...

~~~
chiefalchemist
Such other articles would also be helpful. But as it is too many people still
don't understand that poverty is __not__ their relatively easy life with less
money. Poverty is not merely a financial condition.

You get it. I get it. Most people, especially those in positions of power and
control (e.g., hiring manager) still do not.

------
patkai
Poverty is like drowning.

------
DanAndersen
It should be noted that this paper was published in 2013, and that there have
been some subsequent comments/criticisms of it. While the original paper is
behind a paywall (does anyone know of a place to read it?), this comment on
the paper by Wicherts and Scholten raises questions about the study and
analysis:

[http://science.sciencemag.org/content/342/6163/1169.4.full](http://science.sciencemag.org/content/342/6163/1169.4.full)

>[...]We note that a highly relevant potential confound in the field study
presented by Mani et al. is the possibility of retesting effects. The lack of
any retesting effect in Mani et al.’s field study involving Indian farmers is
clearly at odds with one of the more robust findings in the literature on
cognitive testing (9). Retesting effects on the Raven’s tests are particularly
profound among test-takers with little education (10).

>Mani et al. go beyond the data by concluding that “The poor…are less capable
not because of inherent traits, but because the very context of
poverty…impedes cognitive capacity.” We note that the correlation between
income and IQ also appears in longitudinal studies in which IQ was measured
years before incomes (11). Further research is needed to fully grasp whether
poverty indeed affects cognitive performance, as proposed by Mani et al., or
whether the effect found in their experiments is a test artifact. [...]

\---

I had similar doubts when reading the Princeton press release (though of
course my doubts are only based on hunches and not rigorous statistical
analysis). The experiment testing farmers pre-harvest and post-harvest has the
potential issue of retesting/learning effects, because they had the same
participants take the test both before harvest and then later after harvest.
If they end up seeing an increase in performance from pre-harvest to post-
harvest, that could also be due to learning/familiarity with the test and not
just from the independent variable of altered poverty. I would want to see a
similar study done either with separate (large) groups of participants
pre/post-harvest, or to repeat the test over several harvest cycles so we can
see if there is an oscillating rise/fall as it goes pre/post/pre/post-harvest.

------
hellofunk
Basic income. The older I get the more I strongly hope that the future finds
some version of the ideas currently in research and testing regarding basic
life support to all peoples. There is so much to gain by doing so, for
everyone, whether you personally need it or not.

~~~
adynatos
personally i hope with all my heart that your socialist nightmare will never
come to pass.

~~~
dorchadas
And I hope with all my heart that our current capitalist nightmare ends soon.

~~~
adynatos
i wholeheartedly agree. the present crony capitalism and government
interventionism into the market are damaging to the honest enterpreneur - one
that doesn't have a senator's ear. the only way for free market to work is for
goverment to back off. it's good that at least one other person understands
that!

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
Aren’t these “Poverty decreases IQ” studies providing a rational reason to
discriminate against poor people in society. There is already discrimination
against poor people due to their environment, why provide fodder to
discriminate against their intellect?

------
Nec28
I love HN.

------
pokemongoaway
Maybe you should be all consumed by not having enough money to eat, if you
don't... What's the implication here... That we need to supply these
underpowered brains with government money by means of redistribution? :P

------
pililla
I can vouch for that. As a company founder who has not raised any funding,
meeting payroll and other expenses month on month is so mentally exhausting
that it leaves little for other tasks. I think, in a way, the brains of
startup founders and those below poverty lines work in the same way.

~~~
dang
We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17379724](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17379724)
and marked it off-topic.

------
saintPirelli
I guess this turns the discussion around poverty into a 'chicken and egg'
discussion. Which one was first? One's poverty or one's inability to make good
life choices? So conservatives will say the latter and liberals will say the
first, because you've probably been oppressed by someone and we are already
back at square one.

~~~
DoreenMichele
In the US, one serious medical crisis can simultaneously make you exhausted
and unable to think straight while plunging you into poverty that is nigh
impossible to escape. For many Americans, the only bad life choice they made
was being born here, then routine attrition took care of the rest because if
you live long enough, you are pretty much guaranteed to have a serious health
issue. It's just a matter of time.

~~~
xstartup
_In the US, one serious medical crisis can simultaneously make you exhausted
and unable to think straight while plunging you into poverty that is nigh
impossible to escape._

In Europe, we've don't have healthcare issues - it's free here.

Still, the people are unhappy and poor. Society as a whole is a lot more equal
tho, I've friends who are very poor and ones who are very rich and I never
sensed a discrimination.

~~~
DoreenMichele
I'm not sure someone from Europe can really grasp the kind of horrifying
desperation of an American with a medical crisis. Americans have to wrestle
with questions like "If I go and it's not serious, I'm screwed financially. If
I don't go and it is serious, I'm screwed financially and in other ways."
Especially if you are a parent. Not taking your kid for medical treatment can
get you charged with neglect potentially.

It's just a really ugly situation that I have never actually faced and it puts
me in a weird position. I've lived more like a European in some ways, because
my father and ex were both career military.

------
xstartup
If it's true then...

Obviously, if a person's brain is affected by poverty, the market isn't going
to offer them the equal opportunity when that opportunity can go to the person
(rich) whose brain is not limited by poverty.

UBI won't help them much! They'll still feel poor even if they've money to
meet the absolute basics for a good quality of life.

I think a possible solution is to make it a law that a marriage is "must" and
"can only" take place between a rich and poor person.

That way you can keep forcing equality at generation level till inequality is
eradicated.

Achieving equality completely at "economic level" isn't possible unless you
get done with the social signaling and things like class which can even stop a
poor but smart person from rising faster to the top rung.

~~~
DoreenMichele
Women typically make less than men. They routinely marry men who are wealthier
than them. These marriages have not magically resulted in gender equality.

Your premise flat out doesn't work, even before we get into how ridiculous
this proposal is.

~~~
gaius
_Women typically make less than men. They routinely marry men who are
wealthier than them._

Maybe back in the 1950s when a doctor married a nurse and a businessman
married his secretary. Nowadays it is far more likely that two doctors will
marry, or two business executives.

~~~
DoreenMichele
Everything I have read indicates that female doctors still typically make less
than male doctors, etc. The gap is smaller, not gone.

~~~
chongli
Instead of the doctor marrying the nurse it's now the surgeon marrying the
pediatrician.

People tend to marry others of similar status, not necessarily income level.

